So…..(and yes, this post needs to start with the word “So”)…..

So….I was getting the kids their breakfast the other morning before school…..I could barely peel my eyes open, and I’m certain I was still half-asleep. I was stumbling through our kitchen with a hope and a prayer that the boxes of cereal I had put on the table were indeed Cocoa Pebbles and not Minute Rice.

I have never been a morning person, but I really thought that would change as I got older and had children.  I mean, the days of staying up half the night and then getting to sleep in until noon have passed me by decades ago already, so I figured that eventually……eventually, I would have no problem hopping out of bed at the butt-crack of dawn each day.

I had an image of what mornings would feel like once I made the adjustment and joined the “early bird” club.  You know the image….birds chirping as they place my robe upon my shoulders and tiny little critters nudging my slippers towards my feet.  I would hop out of bed without so much as a hint of longing for my nice, warm bed….stretch my arms into the air and breathe in deeply with a smile on my face…..excited and eager to welcome the day before me.

Well, it’s been 13 years since I had my first child….since sleeping in was exchanged for children lobbing empty Sippy cups at my head yelling, “Mommy, Mommy, wake up…I want some milky” …..and I am STILL NOT A MORNING PERSON!  I am night owl through and through.  And no matter how exhausted I am in the morning when I drag my sorry butt out of bed….or how tired I get right around 2pm every day….I always seem to hit my stride right around 8pm and I’m raren’ to go until at least midnight each night.  My body screams at me to go to bed….especially when I’m this pregnant, but my mind is never on the same page at night.  I get my best ideas, my biggest inspirations, and my largest burst of energy right about the time everyone else is turning in for the night.

SO….when the alarm clock is SCREAMING at me to wake up when I’ve merely just fallen into a deep sleep, I struggle to keep a level head in the mornings.

Anyway, as I was saying….I was gathering the numerous boxes of cereal for the kid’s breakfast, and much to my chagrin, there were no clean bowls in the cupboard.  I glanced down at the dishwasher just praying to God that the “clean” light was on so I wasn’t going to have to try and wash dishes by hand with only one eye open as my other eye refused to cooperate quite yet.  You can picture my joy….sheer joy…..when I saw that bright, red “clean” light lit up like a Christmas tree.  I grabbed the kids their bowls and spoons, everyone scarfed down their breakfast, and we were out of the door on time for a change.

SO….you can imagine my surprise when my husband, Corey, came home that afternoon for a rare lunchtime visit…..opened up the dishwasher and said, “Wow, I guess using soap really does make a difference!”

Me:  ”What?”  ”Could you please repeat that?”

Corey:  ”Well, we were out of soap last night when I was doing the dishes so I just loaded the dishwasher and ran it without soap anyway.”

Me:  silent….mouth hanging open…..

Corey: “I guess I didn’t think the soap really did that much.  I figured it was more the hot water that cleaned the food off, but looking at these dishes, I can see that the soap really makes a difference because these are all still really dirty!”

Me:  still silent….jaw still dropped open…..and utterly speechless that the dishes I served my children’s breakfast with were dirty….speechless that I was so out of it that morning that I didn’t even notice that they didn’t look clean….and utterly dumbfounded that my husband was so unsure of the necessity of soap that he rolled the dice and decided to run his own little experiment with our dishes without notifying his sleep deprived wife of his latest science experiment!

What else could I do but LOL…..