Life with five and three-year-old daughters means listening to so much needless drama, all of it at full volume.

“No fair!”

“Spider!”

“That’s not a T-Rex! It’s an Allosaurus!”

Then there’s the bloodcurdling scream that makes my legs work faster than my brain. The pain scream.

While acting as Odie’s sous chef, Viva gripped the pan’s edge to flip a pancake instead of its handle. My heart goes out to her. I’ve made the same mistake and it hurts like hell. I got her fingers under cold running water within seconds, California drought be damned, while Odie fetched ice cubes and Motrin. She cried off-and-on between guttural noises of agony for the ten minutes it took the ice to work its numbing magic. Eventually, in a weak yet theatrical voice, Viva allowed that the pain would be greatly improved if she could watch cartoons in Mommy’s chair.

Relief flooded in. Once the negotiations start, I know she’s feeling better.

My life teems with negotiations. Spring break means I show up to parenting full-time, and students’ negotiations shift to email. I must say, though, knock on wood, the latest progress reports went out with nary a peep from them.

Sure, there will be some last minute begging and pleading before final grades, but that mostly comes from the parents. They simply don’t know any better, poor dears.

I brought home shopping bagfulls of notebooks, thick folders of tests, and class sets of essays. Everything that didn’t make it onto the report cards. My plan was to spend a little bit of time each day, maybe an hour or two, marking papers (Coworkers who read my blog, I can hear you. Stop laughing!).

I negotiated Friday the 13th “off” for myself, of course, because I’d already worked the whole day at school. Then Saturday, I negotiated for one complete sloth day. Which turned into two, which turned into seven (What time is it? Damn. Eight). And here we are.

Undoubtedly, my students are just as bad or worse. They had nine full days to do their spring break assignments. I imagine most of them are taking a look at the document for the first time today. Sunday afternoon at the latest.  As above, so below.

My spring break calendar has been delightfully full and blessedly empty: Full-time parenting, all 13 episodes of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Google image searches for my next tattoo, household chores, mourning the latest death on The Walking Dead (hashtag EverybodyAteChris), my first spin class and its resulting Acute Pudendal Neuralgia.

That means my crotch hurts. I expected it, I did. There’s only so much you can “prepare” for pain. Viva isn’t the only gal in this house pounding Motrin. With goblets of pinot grigio? Yeah, just me.

Kimmy Schmidt is superb. Most of my “stories” are hour-long dramas that make Odie retreat to another room with a backwards look that seems to say, “Who are you?” This half-hour comedy from co-creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock kept him in the room (hurrah for preserving marital harmony!) and had the best comedic use of spinning class in my vast TV watching experience. If I hadn’t already planned to attend class at the “new” spin studio I’ve been driving by for five years, this would have inspired me. My writer friend (he actually makes a living at it), who also watched and spun this week, posted some provocative questions such as “HAVE we joined a cult?” “Did I just float up to the ceiling, or am I hallucinating?” and “Is this the most amazing workout like ever, ever, ever?” (Yes, he does write for ABC Family). I’m taking my second spinning class tomorrow, assuming that I am able to sit on the bicycle, so I will explore these questions in depth in a future post.

My midlife crisis is humming along apace with Odie’s. These bitches are expensive. We’re relegated to middle class midlife crises, so I’m having to choose between the tattoo and the Botox (Note to self: be sure to tag this post “first world problems).

Pringles is working on her jokes. She still leads with the punchline, but her timing shows promise. Viva’s fingers appear unblistered. They both have ankles hanging out the bottoms of their pants and bellies visible above the waistbands. How am I supposed to finance my midlife crisis with two children growing out of their clothes all the time?

You’re right!

Grandparents.

I need to go make some calls.

Happy first day of spring! May all your noxes be equi.