It's midnight: Do you know where Gigi is?

Since we've returned to the Dickensian-style boardinghouse that we call home (thank you to Cynthia for pointing out the Victorian nature of my night-time parenting), we have had some... sleep issues.

While in that Eden that some people call "Cape Cod," Josephine and Margaret were gently rocked to sleep every night by a fairy grandmother with incredible patience for their leg-kicking, I-will-not-sleep, this-is-too-exciting antics. In the middle of the night, at the first whisper of hysterical crying, she'd gallantly appear: "I'll take her." And one little cuddle-bunny or another would settle into a cozy queen bed between Gigi and Poppa.

Sooo, yesterday, I'm sitting in a staff meeting. (Greenhead flies, I miss you. Even as your loving nips have barely stopped oozing, I admit: I'd rather bear your demon attentions than sit in this damn conference room.) Anyway, I'm sitting there and I realize -- I smell like baby puke.

Oh, Josephine!!! You need to go to sleep by yourself! I can not rock you and Margaret, and then also lay down with the ever-pitiful Dr. Lucy, Esq., every night. I have to wash the dishes. And scrape Play-Doh. And read the new New Yorker. Oh, and sleep! I need to sleep too, kiddo. But my smallest child, she doesn't agree. And, like some kind of tiny Buddhist monk with no access to matches, she stages these vomit protests.

Night-night, Josephinie!

Scream! Scream! Cough! Cough! Puke.

Three nights in a row!

Anyway, these kind of guerrilla tactics might work with the Chinese, but they're not working with me. Your kinder, gentler America ended at the Sagamore Bridge. (Seriously, please stop throwing up. You're killing me.)