The Long Road to Breakfast

6:12 I wake and roll over for another 15 minutes of sleep before facing the cold dark morning. I love the cold, dark mornings of fall. I climb out of bed and head straight for my slippers and my comfy, loose sweater that makes me feel 80 years old in the best kind of way.

6:30 It's out to the living room where my heating pad (think I need to see a chiropractor, I've had the same back pain for 2 weeks now) and my little corner of the couch await me. B Daddy has already made coffee. My heart swells with happy. I grab my new read, A Grief Observed, and settle in for a few minutes of reading and reflecting.

6:40 Blue Eyes starts mewling so I scurry in to scoop him from the crib before he can wake the Squirt.

6:50 Too late. Squirt is up and joins us on the couch. I give half-hearted admonitions for him to go back to bed for a few more minutes. I am resolutely ignored. I'm nursing and haven't touched my coffee yet, so my resolve wanes quickly and I ask him to lay quietly on the couch next to us.

7:10 "Quietly" is not happening and the babe is still eating. I turn on Mickey so I can sneak-read blogs and shake the sleep from my head a bit more.

7:25 The baby is finished and doesn't want to watch Mickey. I grab his play gym and feign interest in the toys hanging above his head for a few minutes, then return to my perch on the couch.

7:40 Mickey signs off and the Squirt wants breakfast. I tell him we're waiting for his sister to wake and we head to the playroom for a change of scenery. Blue Eyes is fussing and I realize he spit up on the living room rug.

8:00 The Squirt tires of watercolors and the baby just wants to be held and walked in circles. We make a game of stacking blocks and the baby to bat them down. This fun lasts for 5 minutes.

8:10 Blue Eyes is still fussing, so I alternately pick him up and hold him and plop him down in front of different toys, all the while wiping bright yellow snot from his red little nose. We're all about to have colds.

8:30 I decide it's nap time already for this little man who will not be quieted.

8:40 I tiptoe out of the darkened nursery just as the cry of, "Mommy!" goes up from Sweet B's room.

8:45 Breakfast at last.