The Saturday Morning Miracle

Just thought I'd share the coolest sound in the whole world with you. Well, the coolest sound in my whole world, anyway.

It happened last Saturday morning. I had stayed up too late the night before. You see, Dustin usually goes to karate on Saturday mornings from 7:00am to 9:00am. Last Saturday was no exception. He went. I vaguely remember kissing him goodbye, as I was still sleeping at 6:45.

Around our house, the typical Saturday morning goes something like this: D goes to karate and about 20 minutes later my kids wake up. Rohan wakes up first... or Ella, but mostly Rohan... and he wants me to get him a bowl of cereal. The little stinker! Doesn't he know that I want to sleep in on a Saturday!! At least a tiny bit! Please!!!? Anyway, then follows the rest of the kids and I try to pretend I'm still sleeping until I hear them fighting or something and I have to yell at them to be nice or get their little fannies spanked or go to time-out or some other really mean threat. Did you know that pretending to be sleeping and yelling at your kids are not congruent? They don't fit very well. It's usually around that time that I get up out of bed and act like a human being for the day.

So, that's the norm. But last Saturday, as I told you, Dustin left for karate and I went back to sleep. The next thing I heard was Rohan saying he wanted cereal. Groaning, I started to try to put him off, but realized he was not in my room, nor was he talking to his mother. It was then that I heard the most beautiful thing an up-to-late-wanting-to-sleep-in mommy could hear; my ears were caressed by the melodious sound of Dustin's deep voice telling Rohan to go pee while he got him some cereal. Dustin was, in fact, not at karate but was home and getting Rohan his beloved bowl of Life cereal while I lay in my bed.


HEAVEN!


I drifted in and out of sleep for the next hour or so. Those few times I woke, I heard something even more wonderful... Dustin telling the kids to "leave Mom alone... she's sleeping!"


RAPTURE!


I thought that life could not be sweeter, but let me tell you about my husband... He is sweetness with a thick coating of muscle and grit. As I came more fully awake, my senses keyed into the noises around the house... the activity that was occurring. I still heard my dashing husband asking my darling children to leave me alone and let me sleep (I let him continue with that for a while, event though I was fully awake by then), but I heard something even better. As I listened, I realized that Dustin was ordering the kids around telling them, "We are cleaning this house and we are cleaning it well!"...with nary a whine from the children!


ECSTASY!!!


Shortly after, I revealed myself to be amongst the living. I cleaned my room while Dustin continued to boss the kids. They worked from 7:30am until almost noon. No fights were had, minimal whining was heard... it was one of those little miracles on a Saturday morning that ended with a sparkly clean house.


And there was much rejoicing.

Shove Over, Brain

Sometimes my brain just gets in the way. Sometimes I think to much and it's usually about the most trivial things. Here's one. Showers. I play the silliest head games about showering. This is something I don't understand because I love showers once I'm in there. I feel just like my children because they never want to do things and then, once doing them, never want to stop.

We have a window in our shower. It's on the east side of my house and it's on the opposing wall from the shower head. Here's the problem. Correction: Here's where my brain creates a problem. Said window is one of those bathroomy windows. You know, it's all textured so you can't see through it? (that's not the problem since seeing INTO the window that is IN my shower would be a problem!) Before 8 a.m., my neighbor's house hides the rising sun. After 8:00, the sun shines through that textured window, creating a shower full of sparkling, brilliant light. 'So what', you say? Remember how I said the window is on the opposite wall of the shower head? Well, to stand in the shower and rinse your hair, it works best to have your back to the shower head causing your tired morning eyeballs to face the brilliant, sparkling, blinding, sunny-like-a-laser-beam-of-death window. I don't like that. I'm a I-hate-sun-in-my-eyes kind of girl. So, I dink around in my PJ's before 8:00 am and then I think, 'Oh, the sun is shining in the shower now! Blast! I guess I can't shower until after about 10 or 10:30!' (because that's about when the sun gets out of range) Then, by 10 or 10:30, I'm in the middle of something else and I don't want to stop and shower, so it turns into me not showering until afternoon. Silly, silly head games! Just bite the bullet and shower, Clancy!

Here's another game I like to play. Getting up in the morning. I lay in bed and I run circles in my brain about how I should get up, but my body answers my brain and says, "Do you know how comfy I am right now? I'm way too tired!" And then I lay there wasting away the precious minutes of non-blinding shower time. Sometimes I wish I could just turn off my brain so I could get things done!

As a side note, in the last few months I've become an early-to-bed girl. I know, I know... I was a dyed-in-the-wool, self-proclaimed night owl, but I really knew for my own health and sanity this must change. So, I've been going to bed for the last couple months between 9:00 and 10:30! Can you say "Wow!" (wow!) Here's the less-than-remarkable conclusion to my side note: Monday night I stayed up until almost 1:30am. For the old me, that time was average, but for the new me, that was very late indeed and the next morning KILLED me. I forgot that I used to be that tired all the time! So, today I will say that I am profoundly grateful for the many factors in my life that brought about this, the more rested version of Clancy!

One of those factors that brought about this early-to-bedness might be of some interest to you... this Friday I'll be thirteen weeks pregnant with the fourth and final installment of Clancy/Dustin procreation. This factor alone makes me very ready to be in bed as early as 6:00 pm some nights and that is a blessed reason, indeed, to get more sleep!