If you make a mom wake up, it's probably because the baby's diaper needs changing.
While she's changing the baby's stinky diaper (her favorite smell to wake up to), she'll notice that the diaper wipe solution is all out.
After changing the diaper, she'll make more solution and refill the bottle.
While making more, she'll realize she forgot to fold the towels from yesterday's laundry and put them away.
She'll fold and put away the towels.
Then she will notice the other full laundry basket that needs to be sorted and put away.
She'll begin folding and putting away that laundry, once again swearing that she will never leave an unfinished load of laundry for the next morning.
While putting away the laundry, she'll realized that it's the girls' laundry day. She will tell them to take the sheets off their bed.
They will inform her that their sheets are already downstairs, as one of them had a major accident during the night that soaked the sheets.
She will thank her lucky stars that the ripped-up vinyl cover is still intact at the site of the soaking incident.
She will then ask the girls at least to remove their pillowcases and place them in their laundry basket.
She will finally go into the bathroom to get herself ready for the day. While washing up, she will hear the girls chasing each other around, hitting each other with pillows and arguing.
While deciding what to wear, she will confiscate one pillow and put it in time-out for causing trouble.
After getting dressed and primped, she will discover that one child suffered from a bout of convenient hearing and did not remove her pillowcase.
A spanking for disobedience will ensue.
Mom will realize that breakfast is way overdue, and after kisses are exchanged and the pillow has been properly stripped, everyone will descend for breakfast.
Upon entering the dining room, she will discover that her children already helped themselves to the messiest cereal in the house.
She will shrug her shoulders at the crumbs and swear to make the ungrateful little beasts pick up every last crumb with tweezers after breakfast.
She will start to make breakfast for herself and the baby, since OBVIOUSLY everyone else has already chosen their breakfast.
Some whining will ensue.
So she will relent and fix a scrambled egg for one of the ingrates. The other one will fend for herself.
While she is making breakfast, the baby will scatter magnetic letters all over the kitchen floor. She will step on several of them, leaving painful imprints of the letter A and the number 7 on the bottom of her foot for a while.
She will realize that her floor needs to be cleaned.
Tired of stepping on crumbs (and letters) she will sweep the floor. While emptying the crumbs into the trash, she will realize that in her half-asleep state the previous morning, she forgot to put in a liner, and sees all the trash just sitting in the bare can. She will make a mental note that the can will need to be emptied and disinfected at some point.
She will shrug her shoulders and get on with breakfast. She will eat standing up, because the girls have decided that their places were too messy, and have moved to the only two clean places left at the table.
After 10 minutes she will give up on trying to eat a healthy breakfast, and just snack on whatever is easiest to grab in between washing up and wiping fingers and faces.
As she is cleaning up, she will make the girls clean up all four of their places until she is satisfied. She relents on the tweezers, though.
She realizes that the gerbils are probably hungry too. So she reminds the children to feed them.
The middle child will need help unscrewing the water bottle, and won't let the oldest do it.
While unscrewing the water bottle, and NOT dumping the water out lest her middle child freak out, she realizes that the seedlings need to be watered.
She will water the seedlings, wondering if the strawberries will EVER grow.
After she is done watering, she will remember that she is supposed to be cleaning up from breakfast.
While she is cleaning up, the baby will discover the pan of basil seedlings and decide to help himself.
The mom will shriek and yank him away quickly, noting only 4 seedling casualties and a handful of dirt that had been consumed.
She will wash the baby's muddy face and place a more sufficient blockade.
She will notice that it is after 9:00, and she should have started school an hour ago.
After finally finishing up, the baby will probably need to be changed again. She will go upstairs to change him.
While she is changing the diaper, she will see her bed again, all nicely aired out and fresh-looking.
And chances are, if she sees her bed again,
she will begin to wish she hadn't woken up.
(with apologies to Laura Joffe Numeroff)
Miriam all set for stargazing!
Joseph found a nice, nasty straw to entertain himself.
A lovely view of the new moon right after sunset.
In this shot you can see the moon with earthshine, and Mercury below it, right next to the tree. You'll need to click on the image to see it clearly. Unfortunately, it never got dark enough for us to see the Pleiades -- we do live in the city after all -- but I had never held out much hope that we would. I tried taking some longer exposures, hoping that they would show up, but I didn't bring the tripod. I tried balancing the camera on the top of the van, but still this is the best I got:
It didn't help that the children kept bouncing around inside. :)
