Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who reminds you, Men Can Blog Too.

1.

Dark pleasures of homeschooling parents:  Listening from the other room as your spouse valiantly tries to help a child with his homework . . . and noting that your spouse, too, is on the verge of breaking into swear words.

 

2.

Who took the dry-erase marker off my refrigerator?  I need it because . . .

3.

Middle of the dark I wake up with busy-brain.  I hear the neighbor’s truck outside.  Must be getting near dawn.  Which means: Stay still.  Do not go to living room and read The Doctors of the Church for a bit to settle down.  DO NOT GET A DRINK OF WATER.

Because: I need an undisturbed waking temp. Need.

Need.

***

I lay there a while.  I wonder if the truck I heard was not my neighbor but the people who go around breaking into cars.  I wonder if those people ever did read the Teacher’s Manual they stole last time.  I wonder if the SuperHusband set his car alarm so that we’ll know when the car-breakers are opening his minivan whose side doors only open when the vehicle is locked and the alarms are set.  I wonder what the car-breakers will think of the giant load of junk filling the back of my truck.  Do they want old children’s games with missing pieces?

No, it is not the car-breakers, because the neighbor starts his truck up again and begins moving it around the yard.  He does this.  He loves backing up.  Precisely.  He has to back up many times.

And then he drives off, and it is silent.  And still very dark.  I worry: Is it actually close to waking-up time?  Or is it the middle of the night and my neighbor is doing his late-night things that he sometimes does?  Nuts if I’ve been laying here all quiet and still with no drink of water and no prospect of sleep, and it’s actually 1 am and not 6 am.  I wonder why I have no clock on my side of the bed.  About three times a year, I want one.

***

I give up.  Grab thermometer, head to living room.  Yay: 6:45.  Double-Yay:  99.0.

One of these years my kids will understand why they sometimes find summer-weather temperatures written on the door of the fridge in the middle of January.

3.5

Roman Holiday.  Of course.