Sleep, anyone?

Imagine, in your best snobby, rich-kid, brat-pack from the 80's movie voice, some snotty kid (more on that thought later) querying, "Tennis, Buffy?"

Wow, this wife and mother thing has its challenges! Like the challenge to get up in the morning and get myself ready, and crack the whip to get princess #2 moving so we can get out the door in time that she's not late for school and I'm not late for work... On the weeks that she's here, I take an alternate route to work so I can drop her off, and although I've left the house almost 30 minutes earlier, battling traffic at that beautiful high school (who failed to plan for TURN LANES and TRAFFIC CONTROL??? Sheesh, people! Did you not realize that your several thousand chilluns would be driving to school at the same time their thousands of parents are trying to get to work?), and then battling down one of those roads--you know, the kind with enough lights to make the traffic move so slowly that only two cars can get through on each cycle? It's amazing I get to work at all, some days. But, the Lord has blessed me with some outSTANDing sunrises! Particularly because of the unfortunate fires in Cali these past weeks, the atmosphere has enough junk in it that even when there aren't any clouds for painting, the sky itself is shaded the most unusual and beautiful hues.

Challenges... yeah, that's where I was going (how cool that I got sidetracked by beautiful blessings?). The challenge to get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. Princess #3 has been an amazing help in this department, as has our family's decision (read: solely my decision, and the rest of them had no choice in the matter) to start Once a Month Cooking. (Go Google it--it's a ton of work up front, but a lot less later) #3 and I gotta work on the final directions--I often forget that she hasn't spent as much time in the kitchen as I have, and directions like "dump the bag into the bowl and put it in the oven on 400" don't get translated into "dump the bag, smash the contents down so there's not a mountain sticking out the top and getting burned and oven-dried beyond reasonable limits of human consumption and pools of liquid surrounding aforementioned mountain like a bubbling moat." Challenges communicating: "Can I go trick or treating with Sally (names always changed to protect the guilty)" actually means "will you come home early from work, help me put the final touches on my costume, and then take me over there--oh, and pick me up when we're done, and no, I didn't study for my 2 tests that I have on Friday like you told me I had to do or I couldn't go with Sally..."

Or how about the challenge of trying to make gravy for the potroast (which has been cooking all day, the mere smell of which has set the tummy monster into a fit of rage) while trying to answer the door for trick-or-treaters? I swear, every time I dumped some of the slurry in, the doorbell would ring. Well, at least it got to cook long enough that the gravy didn't taste like flour. (Again, back to the blessing... Hmm, I guess I'm still a raging "good attitudist"!)

Or, the challenge of getting the hubby home in time to have dinner before the clock tells me that it's tomorrow? I tell you what, he had worked almost 60 hours between Sunday and Wednesday, and not a day off in sight. I do like to see him live and in person every once in a while (I have his picture on my desk for those days when I can't wait to see him--which would only be days that end in "y"), and because he isn't the best at making time for meals while at the store, I like to have something ready for him to eat when he gets home. We then sit at the table and unwind him from the day, and I catch him up on the latest Princess Antics. Occasionally, one or more of the Princesses will stay up so they can see him before bed--oh, and then be so tired that the alarm gets shut off in the morning and DW gets a call saying someone overslept and just woke up and whoops, school started 45 minutes ago and oh, do you think that's a problem to oversleep on the day after All Saint's Day Eve? (Just in case you're wondering, YES, it's a problem. No more trick-or-treating for you, ever. Just kidding. I DO love you, Princess #3! I guess it shows, since I surprised you with the finishing touches for your costume and only reminded me that "you owe me bigtime" about 8 times!)

Then there's the challenge of sleep. Sleep, that blessed state in which one's body is refreshed, rejuvenated, and revived to do it all again another day. That state which has effectively eluded me for far too long. Thanks be to cats, who complain loudly throughout the night that they need food, and such tasty morsels have to be doled out in tiny portions because Old Man Wulfie will barf because he eats too fast and his old tummy can't take it anymore. Or Little Chunk will just starve to death (NOT!) if she doesn't get some food right now. And if it's not food, it's snuggle. As in, snuggle NOW! Oh, were you sleeping? Well, all the better, that means she has a captive audience. I have kicked the cats in my sleep before--would it be wrong if I pretended to sleep and gave them the boot? Hey, they'll never know that I wasn't sleeping... Not that it's all the cats' fault--somehow, I'm just waking up for no apparent reason in the middle of the night. How can a person be so tired and still have such a hard time sleeping?

So, back to Buffy. Sleep, Buffy? Oh, Buffy rhymes with fluffy. As in pillow. Pillow-top bed. Comfy. Calling my name. Now. Gonna go try to snag some of those elusive Z's. Slap-happy? Delirious? Can barely type? Choose "D," all of the above.

Drifting off, thinking, "I can't wait to review this post tomorrow and see what I really wrote." Should be entertaining! Stick THAT in your snobby-voice pipe and smoke it! Gosh, I love those old 80's movies, the really stupid ones with John Cusack in them. I'll probably have a dream where some kid is screaming "two dollars" all night long. Ahh. Dreams. Okay, NITEY-NITE!