Because I never sleep, I watch Rapunzel’s closed eyes as the morning sun slowly starts to light up the ceiling of my bedroom. When Pounce (my cat) finally starts his morning routine of yowling to be fed, her eyes flutter open and I shush her as she exclaims with excitement that today is finally here and we should go have some fun already.

We tiptoe out to the kitchen and I finally take that shot of the party favors we labored so hard over yesterday. The light is still not quite right but what can you expect at six something in the morning? I make her a bagel and we get dressed in our flower market duds (ie: something warm so you can walk inside the giant flower refrigerators without freezing to death.)

We meet my friend and her little three-year-old boy and head off to the flower market. I spend three times what I budgeted for but we end up with a very nice selection of all pink flowers. “I’m a purist” as my friend says. Everyone humors me. Rapunzel and my friend’s little boy hit it off and are best friends by the time we get to Starbucks for some “medium warm hot chocolate” and a slice of lemon loaf. I order a forbidden half decaf eggnog latte and within ten minutes we are all sufficiently hyped up on sugar.

In my friend’s garage we start the official “flower processing” system. This means pulling all the leaves off stems, getting the many vases ready, and starting the floral arrangements. I’m in my element. Greens go in for a base, roses next, gerbers, some rusty brown filler flower etc. etc. etc. Time flies by.

Rapunzel is off with the little boy, finger painting, and I don’t hear a peep out of them until the flowers are done and the little boy comes out to show me his fresh “tattoo”. Across his shoulder blades, in big scrawly Rapunzel writing are the words, “I love Rapunzel” (except it’s her real name) in bright blue ink. This is what happens when kids are quiet. I should have been paying better attention but I was too wrapped up in my flowers. Thankfully, the marker pen tattoo is water soluable and with some extra rubbing, we manage to give the little boy green “incredible hulk skin” instead of a proclamation of his love for my niece. My friend isn’t mad. She laughs it off and tells Rapunzel no harm is done. My friend is a saint.

After Rapunzel loads up on give-away-toys and juice from my friend’s special stash, we get back in the car and head home to run some errands. We pick up lunch and take it down to the beach for a quick rest in the sun. We can’t stay too long at the beach because “mommy and sister” are coming soon and we absolutely have to get our manicure and pedicure done BEFORE they arrive. Heaven forbid we share any of our fun with anybody else.

Rapunzel can barely pull herself away from the cool wet sand that sucks up her feet when she wriggles her toes. She loves the beach. She makes me remember all the reasons I love the beach too and I kick myself for not coming down more often to eat my lunch. Finally with enough prodding, we walk our sandy selves back up to my car and head off to the nail salon.

They are slammed at the nail salon. They chatter and scold in Vietnamese but manage to sit Rapunzel down and get her started anyway. When I’m not looking, Rapunzel either tells the aesthetician that she wants rhinestones on her toes or they trick her into making Auntie spend $5 more bucks than I planned. I can’t say no and end up giving them a huge tip too because I feel guilty for dropping in without an appointment and making them paint the very dirty toes of a wiggly little seven-year-old. I shouldn’t feel guilty but I do. It’s all part of the custom.

When it’s my turn, we opt to go next door to another nail salon (yeah, they line them up out here, one after the other) and I end up getting the royal treatment in one of their “spa chairs”. Rapunzel works huge PR for me as she tells everyone in the salon that I deserve the best because I’m having a baby and I’m scared of “stillborn”. The things little ears pick up. All the ladies laugh and fawn over us. Rapunzel eats up the attention like a big piece of pie. I wince in pain because the woman massaging my arm is pushing all the blood from my upper body into my fingers. Rapunzel narrates everything to everyone in the room.

By the time my family arrives, we are freshly painted and feeling very “girly foo foo”. Who cares that we have a half inch of sand rolled up in the cuffs of our pants.

Ha! It’s three in the morning and I’m awake! What’s new pussycat? Per my norm, I’m sitting in the glow of my laptop. But this time I’m only wearing one slipper and my other foot is freezing! Where is my other slipper? I don’t know. It’s probably underneath one of the many blankets and sleeping bags that my niece is sleeping on. I don’t want to wake her so I’m just going to suffer and switch slippers back and forth between feet. I’m crazy.

That’s what Toby said when he woke himself up from sleeping in front of the television and found me dismantling our giant bulletin board collage in the hallway. What can I say? I need the bulletin board for the baby shower on Saturday and why not take down all the pictures that are on it at three in the morning? I’m awake! I might as well get something done. It’s not like I’m at my mom’s house anymore and I can do laundry all night long.

It’s great being able to do laundry all night long. It’s just plain great having a washer and dryer in your house. When I couldn’t sleep at my mom’s, I played on my laptop and did about fifty loads of laundry for her. When they all went to bed, the floor in front of the washer and dryer was covered in piles of sorted dirty clothes. When they woke up, it was all folded neatly on her coffee table like magic. I’m so efficient! I sure hope this mom-to-be insomnia turns out to be as productive after baby as it is before. Who am I kidding? I read so many other new-mom blogs and they all say sleep deprivation is murder. I guess there’s nothing I can do but wait and see.

In the meantime, lucky you! You get to read the ramblings of a mad awake woman!

So you want to know how my “Just Me and Rapunzel Day” went down? I think it wasn’t as much non-stop fun as I was dreaming up last night. Poor Rapunzel, we spent most of the day “working”. To me it wasn’t work, but to her it was. We assembled all the baby shower favors and they are sooooo cute! Maybe when it gets to be morning, I’ll take a picture of them and put it at the top of this post. As it is, I have no photos for this post other than one I snapped at Baja Fresh because, did I mention that my niece talks non-stop and I can’t concentrate? And I guess when I can’t concentrate that makes me forget about my camera in my purse and it also makes me lock my keys in the car!

Yes, I locked my keys in my car!!! I haven’t done that since high school, when I went through a stage where I did it every day. My Aunt Keren will remember this. I had such a problem with losing my keys that I got a serious complex over it. My Aunt started teasing me and calling me an “air head”. Which of course I wasn’t but I was young and hormonal and I took horrible offense to the term and then started getting another complex that I might actually be an “air head”. Oh the stuff that drives us crazy when we are young and hormonal.

Kind of like the stuff that drives us crazy when we are middle aged and hormonal! Hmmmm… maybe I see a pattern here. Maybe I can’t blame it all on Rapunzel’s nonstop chatter. I am slowly losing my mind.

At about six this evening as Rapunzel and I were counting out circus animal cookies into our little pink bags, we realized that we didn’t have enough ribbon to finish up the job. We were both in our pajamas. (Pathetic, I know, but when you are pregnant and you just spent an hour and a half driving back from Hemet wearing jeans that cut you in half right at the bladder point, pajamas are the only respite. Who cares if it’s six o’ clock.) I decided that it didn’t matter that we were in our pajamas, we were going to hop in the car and drive to the other side of town to to get some more ribbon. The drive to Michaels is sort of far but it would only take us a minute to find ribbon once we got there and who’s going to see us?

Usually, I’m dead set against wearing my pajamas out in public. I make sure I never go anywhere looking like a slob because well, duh! I live in Orange County, and you just don’t wear your pajamas out around here, unless you are a college student or your pajamas are designed by Gucci. But this time I made an exception. I’m practically a mom already anyway, I have to let go of having control over my appearance.

Guess what? When we got there I found out I’m not the only one who makes this exception. Everyone who shops at Michaels wears their pajamas! Even the employees! Who knew! It must be something about being in the middle of a craft project and needing some very important missing ingredient that drives you to slobdom. Whatever, it was pretty funny.

Funny until we couldn’t find any pink ribbon. What kind of store doesn’t have pink ribbon?!!! How could they be out? This is Michaels after all. They usually have end caps of this stuff spilling onto the floor. They are the pink ribbon headquarters! It wasn’t like our pink ribbon is some kind of special import either. It’s the basic 1/4 inch pink kind with those little thread loops on the edges. What do you call that stuff? Not gross grain but the other stuff. You know what I mean. It’s pretty common. If you looked up “ribbon commonly used for baby invitations and favors”, you’d find a picture of it.

So how could Michaels be out? We didn’t drive all the way across town in our pajamas to not find pink ribbon. I contemplated all the other stores I go to and still have some pride left. Thankfully by then, my very intelligent and very out-going niece had befriended an employee (who was wearing gray sweat pants I should add) and this employee found a big box of pink ribbon at the very top of a very tall shelf. Yay! Rapunzel saves the day! I was so relieved.

Of course the story doesn’t stop there. It never does. Things never tidy up nicely in my life. We buy our ribbon and head out to the car with my hand deep in my giant sad sack purse, rooting around for my keys. I can never find anything in this purse. I’ve tried to get rid of it for this very reason so many times. But I just keep using it over and over because it holds everything! Thus, why I can never find anything. If you call me on my cell phone and you wonder why I never pick up but I always call you back one second later when you’re leaving a message, it’s because I can’t find my phone in my purse. I hear it ring. I just can’t find it.

Lately, I’ve just given up and started up-ending my purse wherever I am and sorting through things by putting everything back in one-at-a-time until I find the missing object. It’s madness but it’s just more efficient this way. I drag Rapunzel back into the store and we dump my purse onto a counter near by. I look and look and look. My keys are not in my purse. We retrace our steps and even discuss it with the friendly gray-sweatpants-wearing employee. My keys are no where to be found. Finally, we walk back to my car and from five feet away I can see that the red ignition light is on in my dash. I slap my forehead and die a thousand deaths.

I haven’t done this in ages! I practically have OCD because I’ve trained myself to hold my keys in my hand as I lock my door. This is something I taught myself back in high school! I NEVER LOCK MY KEYS IN MY CAR! That’s sooooo 1990. I have routines I follow so carefully so this exact thing doesn’t happen! Where is my brain?!!!

Thankfully, now in 2005 cell phones have been invented and I can just call my ever-irritated-but-loving husband and he will come rescue me. Thankfully, I don’t have to wait an hour for some Triple A tow-truck driver to come slim jim me out. Oh those were the days. I practically had my Triple A card memorized back then.

Rapunzel and I while away the time (which is a long time, since we are all the way across town) waiting inside the store. She finally curls up in a shopping cart and I let her eat all my gum. I feel so bad. What kind of fun day is this?

Tomorrow I plan to make it up to her by getting us both pedicures. Pink of course. They better have pink nail polish.