Anna Kate Donovan

It was 3:42 this morning.  Laura had pulled her “reverse Houdini” routine.  That is, she had crept into our room, climbed into the bed, snuggled down under the covers and fallen asleep.  I slept right through that part as usual.

At exactly 3:42 she sat up and screamed “in the living room!” at the top of her lungs.  It came out “in da yivin woom” but I understood exactly what she said.  Pardon me, screamed.  Right…in…my…ear.  Apparently she was arguing with someone in her dream and needed to get her point across.  As soon as she closed her mouth, she collapsed back into the pillow and returned to her dream.  I’m not exactly sure why but I started laughing.  I guess it was a natural reaction to release pent up anxiety from being scared out of my skin.  My guffawing woke Laura from her vivid dream.  She was NOT happy.  So that left Robert in shock from being jerked out of a deep sleep, me laughing uncontrollably and Laura fussing at me saying “it’s NOT funny, Mama!”

Of course, my mind then wandered back about 11 hours to yesterday afternoon.  I was inside finishing my book and Robert had taken the girls down to the lake.  As soon as I was done reading, I went outside to join them.  Laura came running up to tell me about a frog she had held.  Her favorite part?  “Mama, he pee on me!”  That got a huge laugh from me so Laura spent the rest of the afternoon yelling “he pee on me!  dat fwog pee on me!” and making me laugh.

There I was.  3:42AM  Laughing my ass off at the peeing frog who is supposed to be in the “yivin woom!”  No wonder I am exhausted….

I have this dream.  It involves dinner.  It consists of a family of five – father, mother and 3 daughters.  There is an entire meal of peace.  Everyone loves all the food on their plate and eats it without complaint or face-making.  There is pleasant conversation at a reasonable volume.  No singing or wild gesturing.  Everyone stays seated and uses utensils.  No one ends up with more food in their hair than in their mouth.  There is no fussing, fighting or tattling.  Manners are innate.  Gastric emissions are neither heard nor smelled.  The whole shebang lasts about 30 minutes.  Everyone earns dessert by eating just enough to sustain life. This charade may one day progress to a venue other than in my own house.

Is that really asking too much?  Dream big, right?  😉