After trying to get my sisters into bed tonight, I'm reminded how much I respect and admire single moms and oldest siblings.
Tonight we are staying at a beautifully elegant bed and breakfast. We just spent eight hours today at a Landry Academy(our online school) Lab Intensive. An intensive is pretty much a year's worth of high school labs and experiments in two days. Today we took our blood type ( I'm O+ in case you're curious), we dissected a frog and an earthworm, we looked at healthy lungs and smoker's lungs, we looked at the stomata of a leaf, we extracted some of our DNA (which I learned stands for deoxyribose nucleic acid... ahhh, I feel so smart when I say that) we learned about genetics and lots of other stuff. But I'll write more about that later, because I've gotten way off topic.
So, back to my original point. Like I said, we are spending the night at a B&B, and Dad and Nate have a room and the girls and I have a room. Which means I'm the oldest and have to make sure everyone gets their homework finished, teeth brushed, and into bed without breaking or damaging any body parts, objects, ect. Which you would think, with a 12 and 14 year, wouldn't be that much of a challenge. Think again. As part of our homework we had to complete a lab report about blood typing. Kate whipped hers out like a lab report factory. Mariah on the hand layed in bed moaning and lamenting, saying how she hated this stuff and how she didn't even understand it and she didn't care if she got an F and she was never going to do this stuff in college. I felt bad for her, but she's just so funny, I couldn't help but laugh at some of her comments. I will say this is pretty advanced stuff though, especially if biology isn't your forte. It's easier for me because I did a lot of this last year, but still, I was in 10th grade and she's only in 8th. So I understand her confusion. She pulled through and managed to finish her report. She had me proof read it, and when I was finished and they were in bed, I thought I could finally get to my own work. I don't think I ever been more wrong in my life...
Scene begins with me sitting in the little living room in the back of the room and Mariah and Kate in bed in the other room.
Mariah asks Katie, "Did you even understand the diffusion and osmosis stuff today?"
Katie, "Kinda."
Mariah calls to me, "Abby, did you?"
"Yeah, but I learned it last year too, so it was easy for me. What didn't you get?"
"I don't know..."
I then to proceed to quickly explain diffusion, osmosis, semipermeable cell membranes, equilibrium, homeostasis, and how glucose can go through the membrane but starch can't because it's too big, and all that stuff. I also talked about the experiment we did about that.
Afterwards I asked, "Does that make sense now?"
Kate, "Oh, yeah."
Mariah, "Bless whoever gets thats." And she sounded so lost and confused when she said it, it made me die laughing.
Then I have Mariah come to me for a second so I can show her how to correct a pie chart she had made, and make sure she understands what she did wrong.
"No, I'm scared."
"Mariah, come here!"
"No!"
"Mariah, I'm serious, get in here!"
She sheepishly pokes her head in the door.
"Let's go."
She walks in hugging her pillow, and stands halfway across the room from me.
"I'm scared." I think she was joking at this point.
"Come sit next to me" She does and then I show how to fix the chart.
Well, if Mariah's out of bed, why would Kate stay in bed? And Mariah said she wouldn't stay unless Kate stayed too. Am I really that scary? So despite my objections, Kate joined us and began reading about the labs for tomorrow. When I finish with Mariah, she goes back to bed but Kate stays and keeps reading. Mariah then comes back in and says Katie needs to come to bed too. But she walked in liked a zombie and the pillow she had on her head just made it funnier. So of course Katie and I start laughing. Then Mariah starts laughing. And it went downhill from there. I think my biggest problem is that I can't not laugh. They can just be so funny! Especially Mariah. So while they're in full blown second wind mode, I'm trying to use my big mean sister voice to get them settled down. Which I found out doesn't work when you're laughing. There was kinda a pattern to the night. They get in bed for a few minutes, then come busting back in the room, laughing and laughing about something one of them said, then I manage to get them back in bed, but only to have the cycle repeat itself a few moments later. I can't even remember all that went on or all that was said, but I know for a fact that things are 100 times funnier when you have your second wind. For example, Katie comes to me laughing hysterically. Why? Mariah called her a minion. Yes, I love minions and they are hilarious. But that funny? She definitely had a bad case of second winded-ness...if that's even a thing. Or she was extremely loopy as my friends would say. Then mariah comes stumbling in declaring she had heat stroke. It's an inside joke, so of course I started laughing. And as hard as I tired not to laugh, I pretty much laughed at everything. At one point Katie was rushing to jump into bed, but as she was jumping onto the bed she knocked (quite hard) the side table with her knee and knock the lamp over. She was then laying in bed holding her scraped knee and doing this laugh-cry thing that I think most girls can do pretty well. But when Mariah got so out of control that she broke the door knob... that's when I drew the line. I still laughed and had trouble stopping, but eventually I was able to pull myself together and make then get into bed once and for all.
But I guess even as much as I wanted a normal night; life just wouldn't be as fun or memorable unless there were some nights like tonight every once in a while, right?
So to end I'll just say that as hilarious as tonight was, I'm glad that I don't always have to be the oldest sibling and I certainly pray I'll have to do the whole single parenting thing.
Side note: So I thought I had gotten them in bed? No. They just got really quiet, but the scheming went on. When I finally went to bed, I opened the door to a mountain of pillows. Remember, it's dark because I just had turned the lights out. They had taken pretty much all the pillows (which was a ton. There was seriously like a bazillion through pillows on the beds) and barricaded the door way. And what the first thing Katie says to the next morning? "Did you run into our booby-trap?!"
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