A LONG Day followed by A Short Night

I love my boys, but there are days when they find that last nerve and play "Lord of the Dance" on it.

In church yesterday, it was a holy battle. There is a definite reason why we sit in the back of the chapel - for a quick escape when necessary! I had to make a couple of them yesterday with my two year old when he flopped, cried or otherwise made a nuisance of himself. My wife wrestled our four-year-old while he whined about nearly everything and found a variety a ways to pester his younger brother. And my oldest son did not help matters as he could not sit still and snitched books, coloring books and snacks from his younger brothers when he thought we were not looking. Do you think the other church-goers would think poorly of us if we brought them bound and gagged with duct tape next week?

My wife and I had a brief respite when we sent them off to their Primary and Nursery classes, but they picked up right where they left off after church with my two-year-old splashing in the hallway water fountain, my four-year-old getting outside without a coat and running away and my nine-year-old yelling at him from inside the church hallway. When we finally did get them all loaded up in the car and back home, they spent the rest of the afternoon pestering each other, whining, crying and complaining, and making a general mess of the house. The highlight of the day was when we loaded them all into bed at 7:30 p.m. at which point my wife retreated into a good book. I attempted to do the same, but my eyes kept glazing over until I fell asleep on the couch sometime around 8 p.m.

I woke up, still on the couch, at 2:30 a.m. and contemplated joining my wife in bed. My wife, apparently, had other plans as there was a large pile of unfolded laundry stacked on my side of the bed. Not wishing to disturb her (she says she rarely gets a restful night of sleep due to an involuntary leg twitch she says I have ... I have no idea what she is talking about), I elected to just make a quick trip to the bathroom and finish the night out on the couch.

As I flipped on the light in the bathroom, it became readily apparent that there would be no quick trip here. One of my sons had been in there with a bout of explosive diarrhea. I know that for a fact because the toilet had not been flushed and there was evidence of the crime all over the inside of the toilet, on the rim of the toilet, on the top and bottom of the toilet seat, on the floor and (don't ask me how) smeared on the top-side of the toilet lid. All I can say is that the person who invented the disinfectant wipe definitely deserves an increase in pay.

After I took care of "the nasty," I went back to couch with the intention of getting more sleep. Remembering, dimly, that my wife had asked me the night before to assemble the Christmas tree (yes - ours is plastic) before heading off for work that morning, I made a quick detour to the garage to grab it and then vainly attempted to fall back asleep. As I lay there staring at the ceiling, I contemplated just setting up the tree right then. But I quickly discounted that idea because I knew that it would only make me more awake than I already was. I finally fell asleep sometime around 3:30 a.m. ... only to wake up again at 5:20 a.m. At this point I put together the tree, cleaned up after another bathroom visit by my diarrhetic son, threw on my gym clothes and shoes and headed out for a morning game of basketball with some friends before work.

What is the point of all this? Nothing, other than to say, "I'm tired, and I can't think of anything else to write about."