Last week, we got into a nice little routine. Olivia discovered Get Some ZZZ tea (Republic of Tea) and convinced me to buy it. I have been having trouble staying asleep as my brain seems to think its perfectly reasonable to awaken at 4:25am and worry about any number of things. Things like missing that blog radio interview in September, making sure I remember to get on top of middle school applications, remembering to vote, writing another chapter about my dead narrator in my head, the chapter I will forget by the time I get up, bugging myself to get moving on removing the thousands of tiny yellow tomato plants that took over my garden this summer, even though its too late to prevent all those unpicked tomatoes from falling off the vine and planting themselves for next year. Apparently this is all important stuff.

Olivia kind of begged for the tea in the grocery store, and I relented, almost as anxious as she was to try it. We made the tea at 9pm and I dripped some honey into each cup and then loaded them onto the psychedelic pea green tray and carried them to my bed. We all crowded in there and sipped our tea. I found myself saying: "Carter, stop dripping tea into your belly button," which I am pretty sure is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I bet his belly button slept well.

At 9:30, the kids went to bed, and I crawled into my covers and was asleep by 10. and I didn't wake up until 6am! A miracle. We did it every night. The kids almost got along.

Halloween happened (see Ice Queen above). Carter, as a banana trick or treated with a friend and had a sleepover. Olivia (a ring leader) went to a party at some big sports dude's mansion (it had its own theater WITH a box-office! She could totally be on "Teen Cribs" if she wanted...), but then bailed on the sleepover, something she had been doing with regularity of late. I danced my poor high heeled feet off, ate about 5 lbs of smoked sausage, worked hard not to find too many excuses to visit the cute Ozzie bartender, was accosted by some weirdo who kept wanting to "kiss" and finally went to bed (alone) at 3:30am, surprised to find Olivia already there. I was very glad the clocks fell back. I think they must have been at the same party.

Last night, Carter and I went and saw our friend in the last night of "Cannibal, the Musical," which was highly entertaining. When we walked in the house, I looked at the kettle and decided we didn't need the tea, since we were already so tired from our various late nights, sleepovers, mansion parties, trick or treating, etc. I guess I should have. Olivia was already in the bed, watching some kind of schlock like "The Hills," so Carter had a massive temper tantrum, suddenly freaking out that Olivia was part of his "cuddle bunny" time. Olivia stormed off, effectively giving Carter exactly what he wanted. I woke up at 5am again, I guess because I still haven't voted, or gotten rid of those damned tomatoes, or applied for any of those middle schools.

But I have learned my lesson. Tonight, the ZZZ tea is definitely making a return visit to the bedroom and hopefully peace will reign once again.