Truly, this weekend was positively Alexandrian in stress. Worse.

Friday night, Jill and I got a babysitter and went to see Bruce Springsteen in concert. The show itself was great, high energy and fun.

But we were sitting in a peculiar section made from temporary aluminum risers.

They wiggled.

It was like being on a boat.

Between the reverb from the music, the constant, irregular shaking of the seats, and the stale beer and wine fumes, all my motion-sickness-combating strategies worked for about an hour. I went home and overpaid the babysitter due to miscommunication with Jill about what we were supposed to pay her. Jill and her friend Rob stayed and tried to do some band-stalking after the show, without success.

Saturday morning, Noah fell and split his lip at music class. He cut the inside of his lip against his teeth, falling against a low ledge. In case you were wondering, lip wounds bleed like you would not believe.

We were scheduled to get Noah a haircut after class, and while he seemed to be perking up and ok after about 15 or 20 minutes, I couldn’t face taking him alone, especially in my blood-soaked shirt.

Naturally when I called Jill, she was in the shower. By the time I actually reached her, I was the hysterical one, not Noah.

Still, the 3 of us went to the haircut place anyway, and had Noah’s usual drama-filled haircut, with much crying and clutching of Mommies.

Then it was time for home and lunch and a nap. We learned beyond a doubt that Noah, who will happily eat 3 full-sized containers of yogurt in one sitting, will reject them out of hand the moment he encounters any “stuff” in the yogurt. Like a piece of strawberry, for example.

I was totally drained by the morning and needed a nap too.

Initially, Noah went down willingly. Jill left to run some errands, and approximately 2 minutes later, 20 minutes into nap-time, Noah got up with a poopy diaper. He had a second one 5 minutes after that. And a 3rd major disturbance that I don’t remember the details of, about half an hour after that.

I woke up from my nap around 5:15 pm. Noah was still sleeping. Normally he wakes up around 3 pm.

We got him up, much to his irritation.

It was around this time that Jill had her delayed reaction freak-out over Noah’s busted lip. It was pretty badly swollen, with a nasty laceration inside his mouth. And although it hadn’t been actively bleeding since shortly after it happened, there were a few patches of blood-tinged drool stains on Noah’s sheets.

The evening was blessedly uneventful, with Noah eating 3 cartons of smooth yogurt for dinner.

We put him to bed half an hour or so late. From 8:30 pm to 12:30 am, Noah got up out of bed crying at intervals between 5 and 60 minutes.

At 12:30 am, Jill got up and took him downstairs for a snack and to try to burn off some of his wakeful energy.

She reached the end of her rope at 1:15 am and handed him off to me.

When he declared at 3:15 am that he wanted to play baseball, I realized I was close to losing it too. No baseball, and in spite of vigorous protests, I restarted the usual bedtime routine. Minus This Mommy’s ordinary role, which also added to Noah’s agitation.

Three stories later, Noah willingly went to bed, and slept until 7:30 am.

I had to teach Sunday School yesterday, and took Noah in early with me.

Unfortunately, our new paid caregiver agency blew it’s last chance to keep our contract by sending only 1 person, not 3. And she was late. Our preschool coordinator was out of town, so no one had the agency’s phone number to get hysterical at them. Also, no one had unlocked the doors to 4 of the 5 rooms. The only unlocked door was to the room with what I can only describe as peculiar and sensitive lighting. When I arrived, the coordinator’s 4 year old daughter and her mother in law were sitting in the one well-light corner of the room, behind a curtain, wondering what to do.

I left Noah with them and went to deal with all that, plus set up my room and get ready to teach.

Did I mention that up to this point, I also hadn’t eaten anything? BAD idea for a pregnant lady.

Eventually, we got the doors unlocked, combined the preschool and pre-K classes, got the paid staffer and her 6 year old daughter set up in the baby room, and had Sunday School.

I even made it to “big church” (aka the regular service) on time, having gotten the extended care volunteers settled in and able to identify all the 2-4 year olds.

It was Youth Day. All 4 high school seniors active in the youth group got to deliver sermons.

In the middle of Sermon #3, one of the extended care volunteers appeared at my elbow. “Noah is crying hysterically. We haven’t been able to distract or calm him down for 10 minutes,” she whispered.

Jill had driven separately to church, in case that isn’t obvious from all the above. I turned to her and whispered, “I’ll go get him and take him home. See you later.”

Indeed, he was still hysterical, sprawled on the floor and sobbing when I arrived.

Eventually Noah calmed down, although he had a relapse when I abandoned him in his car seat to get in the driver’s seat of the car without him. Fortunately, my stash of Fig Newtons helped quiet the situation.

When we got home, I took him directly upstairs for a nap.

Hah!

Although Noah did play quietly in his room for about an hour, there was no napping. He and I finally dozed off in front of the tv — some totally unfamiliar baby boomer cartoon program involving racing to Hackensack — around 3:30.

Again, we woke him up close to 5 pm, because we had dinner plans with the 3 other families with whom we are splitting season tickets to the new Atlanta WNBA team.

Fortunately, the other kids in those families are 3, 3, and 5, so no one wanted a late evening. And the hosts had a train table, so Noah played happily the entire time we were there. He paused for less than 5 minutes to inhale a hot dog, and was diverted for another 5-7 minutes by a cool trampoline with handlebars and buttons that played music.

Bedtime went almost as badly as it had gone on Saturday.

Finally, I just curled up with Noah on the mattress next to his bed. We snuggled quietly for almost 45 minutes, with him patting my face, arms, or neck almost the entire time. Finally he was willing to get back in his Thomas bed alone, where he fell asleep quickly.

I went to bed about 10 minutes later.

In the background to all of this, and on a good note, Blur has been kicking up a storm. I’m pretty sure she gave me a solid head-butt yesterday as I got into the shower.