Last week, for our drive to Arkansas, I had brought two bottles of beer in our cooler along with various snacks for the car trip.  I was thinking I might enjoy one after a long drive with children. Who wouldn't, right?  Well, our day was more adventurous than we had planned, with a breakdown and subsequent 2.5 hour wait at the Kansas roadside, complete with ticks crawling across the pavement to us.

Finally, we were rescued by our tow truck and taken to a hotel.  Upon arriving, this sign was displayed in the lobby:

When Brian arrived at our hotel room, I told him of the sign.  Sandis pipes up saying, "well, mommy, you better drink them up!"

Yep, she's ready for college.

Brian & I went grocery shopping sans children.  They are old enough now plus the older one has taken the babysitting class.  We left them one cell phone while we took the other (even though we have a landline.)  This is what happened.  Green is Sandis/the devil, white is Brian or I.  Hydra is Sandis' lizard.

 

  

Apparently, the devil is a sucker for biscuits, who knew?

  

For various reasons, we have had to get up early for nearly two weeks straight.  Some days we had to be up as early as 5am, other days we had the "luxury" of sleeping until 7am.  This may be normal to some, but not to the Walter girls who generally sleep until 8:30 or 9am, occasionally, 10am.  (Yes, I do work, but my hours are flexible and I take advantage of that.)

This morning however, all of that has come to an end.  A brief end, as the children have camp next week, but an end nonetheless. Yesterday I informed my children that anyone who woke me up on Friday would be punched in the face.

Sandis woke me up at 8:30am.

Not only did she wake me up at 8:30am, but she also woke up her sister, who had crawled into my bed at some point in the night.  And she didn't wake us gently with breakfast or song.  Or even in typical child fashion by jumping on the bed.  No, she wakes us by sticking a scaly, blue-tongued creature in our face and saying, "Hydra says hi!"

Yeah, that.  Let that sink in.  Being woken up by a lizard less than an inch from your face.

Despite all of that I did NOT punch her, face or elsewhere.  This probably sets a bad precedent.  While I'm sure my children didn't THINK I would punch them in the face, as judged by 1) their giggles when I threatened it, and 2) the fact that she woke me up even with the aforementioned threat, now they KNOW I won't punch them in the face.  Damn it, now I must think of a new threat.

Still, the fact that I did NOT punch her in the face after being not only awoken, but awoken in a rude way, entitles me to the award of Parent of the Year. Or at least the day.