Just in case you didn’t pick up on it the first 87 times we mentioned it, yesterday was our kids first day of school. We were ready! We stayed home Saturday night and had a nice family dinner and played some games. We worshiped together Sunday morning and had a great brunch with friends after church. We surprised our daughter and took her to get a cell phone that afternoon. And to wrap it all up we ate an early dinner at our favorite burger joint which happened to be right next door to T-mobile.

Once we came home the kids had their baths and were off to bed. I went to tuck them in, said prayers and talked about what they both could expect the next day. I then made both lunches, finished up some laundry and basically got myself ready for the first early morning since school let out three months before. Little did I know how early my morning would be!

At 3 a.m. I woke up to the sound of my bedroom door opening. I am a very light sleeper, at least where my kids are concerned. I think most moms are that way. It was Grace. She had woken up and was just too excited to go back to sleep. Starting middle school can do that to a girl!

Against my better judgment I let her get in bed with us. I knew I would never get back to sleep and would have to send her back to her own bed eventually. But I thought it would at least help calm her down so she could get her rest. At 3:45 I told her she had to go back to her room. With all the whispering and pillow stealing going on the dog woke up and decided she was too excited to go back to sleep as well!

Now Grace and I are both up walking around. Grace is going back upstairs and I am letting the dog out and trying to remember to turn the house alarm off first so I don’t wake up the rest of the house. Lazy Dad Philip was sleeping through all of this. What is it with dads? Is it their lack of progesterone that allows them to sleep through everything!? I think that testosterone is a sleeping hormone and if it didn’t cause excessive hair growth I would be down on the street corner buying some! Don’t ask me what street corner. I live in a bubble and would have no idea where to buy anything illegal. Although I did hear several years ago that someone was selling cocaine out of the drive thru at our local Boston Market. I’ll take a gram to go please, and don’t forget the gravy on my mashed potatoes. How strange!

Anyway, back to my riveting story. I got back in bed and tossed and turned. Around 4:30 I hear the dog whining again. Seriously! We have a fabulous dog, she has not woken me up during the night in over three years. She curls up on the floor next to our bed and goes to sleep and I don’t hear from her until the morning. She picks the night before school starting to wake me up twice! I get up and let her out again and also let go of the dream of getting any more sleep that night.

I at least accomplished a few things between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. I folded laundry, registered my son for baseball, sent a few emails and played bejeweled on facebook. I had planned to tell you all about my kid’s first day of school but it appears I have rambled long enough. I’ll save that exciting story for another day!