Auuugh. A couple of weeks ago I sent Talented Hubby out to the supermarket to get something dull and boring, like perhaps milk or bread or potatoes. He probably came home with those things (and twelve other items no doubt) but he also came home with an on-sale carton of Pepsi.
The Pepsi? 'Tis evil in a can.
If we don't have 'the fizz' in the house, I don't tend to crave it. We are not totally angelic in this area and might pick up a 1 litre bottle of Coke every couple of weeks (which is promptly dealt with and forgotten in the space of 24 hours) but except for a few rare occasions in all our years of marriage (eight years tomorrow!), we are not really people who are One With The Multi-Pack.
It turns out that having Pepsi (an inferior brand, in my humble opinion, but that's what you get when you marry a frugal man and Coke isn't on sale) on tap is not such a smart idea. For starters, knowing its there sets the tastebuds a-salivating. Then I can't think of anything else that could possibly ever quench my thirst and so I crack open a can. The first mouthful tastes wonderful. Then it's gross. But I drink it anyway. Because we bought it on sale and darn it, I'm in frugal mode this week so wasting it would be a crime.
The result of such a spike in caffeine consumption (I don't drink coffee and have dropped my tea drinking right back over these warmer months) has been dramatic. I'm Flubber-izing off the walls for about half an hour then I'm blech. And meh. And auugh. All in together. Until the headache hits.
I know. I'm a slow learner.
In other news this week, Jay (I have come to the conclusion that 'Master J' is too tedious to type and just 'J' doesn't fit in alongside 'Boof' and 'Moo' very aesthetically - hence J will now be creatively known as 'Jay'. I know. I'm all about the fan-cee) has been given a new responsibility. Since he wakes up at the butt-crack of dawn every single day of the year, including school holidays, he is now responsible for letting the dog out.
Problems which immediately sprung to mind when hatching this plan (hereafter known as Operation Mama-Needs-More-Than-Two-Hours-Sleep) included, but were not limited to, the following:
Jay is not known for this direction-understanding qualities.
Jay gets distracted easily in the mornings, especially when confronted with 'the pants-wearing sponge man'.
Charlie is spending his nights barricaded into the laundry room, creatively holed up using the toy box lid across the doorway. Jay would need to slide this out of the way.
Jay would then need to walk immediately to the back door, ensuring Charlie follows him because the dog has a wake-to-wee bladder capacity of approximately seventeen seconds.
If Jay forgets to take the dog outside, and just lets him out into the (mercifully tiled) family room, wee-city.
Once the dog is outside and has done his business, Jay needs to remember to leave the screen door slightly open so Charlie can get back in again.
If Daddy leaves for work during this time, Jay needs to be responsible for keeping the dog inside while Dad backs out and rolls the garage door down again, then open the screen door again (he forgot yesterday - I woke up to Moo in my face crying because her bum was wet. When I asked her what happened, she said Charlie had whizzed on the floor and she'd slipped and sat in it. A second child had also stepped in it. Instead of calling out to Mum from where they were, they walked through the house - 'nuff said).
Did I mention Jay is autistic?
Actually, he's doing an okay job, considering. I still have to leave him a note on the kitchen table reminding him of each step of the process (what cements in a regular kid's brain, takes that extra bit longer with Jay) but apart from yesterday's mix up, so far, so good. It gives me 30-60 mins extra sleep each morning - sorely needed because, um, this caffeine? IT IS KEEPING ME AWAKE AT NIGHT.
Ooooh, but a side effect of all this night-time energy has finally culminated in a project I've been wanting to tackle for, I don't know, FOREVER, and I'm especially tickled pink because this version has actually worked where the others have failed dismally. I won't keep you in suspense for very much longer, but I do still need to take a few photos and write up the jumbled Pepsi-fueled bullet points in my brain into a cohesive post.
Oops, nearly late for the school run!
3 comments:
We're pepsi drinkers here on the odd fizzy occasion,i.e. summer...
We've been this way since child #3 was two and the connection between uncontrollable high spirits and the occasional bottle of coke was made. Coke has red food colouring, so a couple of hours after the fish'n'chips bottle of coke dinners, K would be bouncing off the walls. Pepsi has caramel colouring, resulting in a much quieter Saturday evening for all of us. She drinks coke now, but chooses diet, caffeine free. Plus she's 33, so is allowed to choose her own foods...
Yay on Jay! He'll get the hang of the routine.
We're one of the odd 'spectrum families' we know of who are not currently engaged in dietary intervention on a grand scale in regards to the autism. However common sense sees us avoiding the obvious stuff like chicken-flavoured potato chips etc. We don't let the kids drink soft drinks except for the very rare McDonald's lemonade. But we're also not food nazis - they have lollies and colours and all sorts of naughty things, LOL. The chicken chips were always a BIG trigger for Jay though.
I can just imagine you reading your 33yo daughter the riot act regarding her food choices, LOL...it would get you about as far as my parents doing it to me now (I'm 29), LOL.
Mind you, I'm hardly svelte anymore, so.... :P
Ha Ha, K has been drinking her diet coke ever since she got her first payday at 17. She was still living with me then, so eating what I cooked, but buying her own snack foods as well. She moved out and lived on fast foods for a while, then came home after a fire in her unit. A few years after that, I let the two youngest take over the lease on the house and I moved to my unit. They both lived on fast foods for a while, still do occasionally, but they did start experimenting with recipes and have become quite good cooks. All food is accompanied by the ever present diet coke for K.
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