Shoot the wounded

I cannot believe I am up this early. It is 4:22 a.m. and Arielle is sitting beside me as I type this, happily popping bubble wrap, which may yet deprive me of what little is left of my all-too-fragile hold on sanity.

I have been up around half an hour.

Arielle woke up early this morning. Despite the fact that it was dark outside, which means that she needs to stay in bed, as I have explained to her before, she got up. When she couldn't find either of her parents in the living room she became very upset and started crying.

The husband was already up, getting ready for work. He heard her and brought her into our bedroom, to me.

Isn't he sweet?

Why yes, yes indeed, I do plan to return the favor, some dark night.

Of course, this was after I went to bed sometime after midnight, because I'd been waiting up for Michael to come home. Which is when I realized that we had made a fatal mistake and not specifically spelled out that we were expecting him to come home, instead of spending a second night at his friend's house.

We're going to have to specify that the restriction about spending more than one night away from home is the default position. Unless we state, in so many words, that he is allowed to spend two nights in a row away from home, he is to get his hide back here within 24 hours.

Lawyer, thy name is teenager.

Let's see. Gabrielle will wake up in about two hours. She won't go down for her nap until noon, although I can push that to 11:30. I can turn on the tv and doze while they watch Dragontales and the like. Arielle will be pretty tired later on. I might be able to her to take a nap at the same time Gabrielle does.

Or I could just grind up some of the husband's pain medication and slip into her juice box.

Yeah, yeah, drug the kid, that's the ticket.