My Seussical Life for 2004 March 4

It's funny, life with young children. My apartment might be spotless, pristine, perfectly ordered before I go to bed. But by twelve o'clock noon the next day, you would never know it had ever been anything but a pig sty. Is there anything I can do about it? Not really, unless I want to a dreaded figure in the lives of my children.

The other issue that plagues me (or eludes me, depending on your take) is sleep. Dave shares this deficiency with me as well. Take last night, for example. I managed every activity so that we might have a decent bed time. Both of us were weary from a string of bad nights. The boys were in bed by 8:00, things were tidied up by 10:00, and I was under my covers by 10:30, waiting for slumber to overtake me. At about six after 11:00, Samuel began wailing, and come to find out, he had a foul diaper that needed changing. Dave changed the diaper, I rocked him back to sleep, and we were both back in bed by about 11:20. You're thinking this isn't all that bad, and an 11:20 bed time ISN'T so bad, unless you consider that we were already sleep deprived. Samuel woke up at 5:15 am, and wouldn't go back to sleep. We ignored him as well as we could, but an hour later, Atticus was in our room, demanding that we get up. One cannot ignore Atticus' morning demands.

These children of ours are relentless early morning creatures. We are lucky if they stay asleep until 7:00 am. It doesn't matter if they go to bed at 6:30, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 or 10:00pm. They ALWAYS are awake by 7:00. Saturdays, Sundays, holidays and sick days are ALL included. In fact, the later they go to bed, the earlier they seem to arise.

I am growing accustomed to the dark half-moons beneath my eyes.