May

A mother’s prayer: Please, please, please let me get a good night’s sleep tonight. Please don’t let me wake up in a race car-shaped kiddie bed at 3 a.m. with my head wedged into a wheel well and a kid sprawled across my legs, like last night. Please don’t let a child crawl into bed with me and promptly pee on me. Just one good night’s sleep, that’s all I ask. Amen.

10 p.m. sharp:  Time to turn off the television and go straight to bed. Am so tired. Ooh, but an “American Idol” rerun is on! I’ll just watch for a minute.

11:00 p.m.  I’m so over Clay Aiken.  Anyway, off to bed.

11:03 p.m.  How can I be expected to sleep when a persistent voice is coming from the kitchen freezer, calling out, “Hellooooo? Anyone awake?”

"Can I have juice? Can I have juice?" This is the sound of our two children coming to dinner. We rarely have soft drinks around the house, we've explained that beer and wine are a few years off, we suggest a glass of milk or water, but none of it works. The boys want juice.

What is truly disconcerting, however, is what is more and more frequently occurring after dinner. Something akin to repeated renditions of "Mothra vs Godzilla" (albeit with a male Mothra) involving jumping on furniture, tumbling on the floor, knocking things over, and turning the most innocuous items into weapons. These epic battles leave our living room in a condition close to that of Nagoya after its destruction. The link between the sugar in juice and the havoc wrecked on our household seems clear.