Morning brain...

More like mourning brain as in mourning it's unfunctionality in the morning.

Huh?

(Play the theme in your head and read the next line in your best Rod Sterling)

Picture if you will Monday morning... the chateau de never ending (unfinished) projects... it's 6am and we've encountered some kind of rip in the time continuum... OR HAVE WE?

For an explanation we need to roll back the clock (not unlike that we do at the end of daylight savings) to the evening previous.

Other than it being Ana's birthday...

Happy Birthday Ana

... and it being exceptionally windy and cold for this time of year, it was like any other day. Day fell into night, we ate dinner, the kids picked up the family room (mostly Emmah) and they got ready for (and eventually went to) bed. I sat downstairs in the family room with the birthday girl and Julie went up and tucked everyone in. She came back down, we watched a little TV and then I went to (finally) empty both of the 2GB camera cards. When you have two cards full and have to choose what photos to delete in order to take a photo... it's time to take action.

I plug in our camera and turn it on to start unloading, but knowing that I've started this process (various times) before, as has Julie, I want to make sure that I don't have multiple copies of the pictures taking up unnecessary disk space. So I came up with a plan, and made a folder to dump them in and am all ready to go when I hear BeeBoop. (That's the sound the computer makes when you connect or disconnect a device to it) Since I already heard the BeeBoop once (when connecting it) I realize that this BeeBoop is a disconnection... but I didn't unplug anything. Ahhhhh... the battery has run dry. FANTASTIC! This forces me to use Emmah's camera for the duration. Problem with this is that the past few times that this has been attempted (with her camera) we've had trouble getting it and the computer to talk.

In the mean time, Julie has fallen asleep downstairs with Ana, whom I already put to bed before she (Julie) came down from tucking in the kids... hence the moment of watching some TV uninterrupted.

In my attempt to unload the cards, I run into a few snags but manage to, in the end, get it done. I won't bore you with the details, but upon unsnagging the snags and waiting for a total of almost 2,000 photos (between the two cards) it ended up being 3am before turning in. I'd like to add that all the while, I could hear coming from the family room an unhappiness... that unhappiness was in the form of Ana. The silent unhappiness I wasn't hearing was Julie.

Shortly after my head hitting the pillow, I was gone... it was 3 in the morning after all... and the unhappiness emanating from the family room stopped.

Well, I could no longer hear it!

Monday's are an early day (earlier than other days) as Emmah has early morning band. She needs to be at school by 7:15. What I normally do is take her and then come back and get the rest of the kids and take them. It's hard enough getting Emmah out the door in time to make 7:15 without having to worry about getting the other three... so that's the plan we follow. On the regular daze, the attempt is made to get everyone out by (sorry... I'm laughing as I type this) 7:20.

Hold on, I need a moment to catch me breath here.

Okay... when that does happen (and it does from time to time) I take Emmah first and then the other three. Leaving at 7:20 allows me the time to not have to drive like a cabbie in order to make the bell, or in this case the bells. What usually happens is that we leave 10 to 15 minutes after the DTG (departure time goal) and I am transformed into the guy whose name you can't pronounce. Driving like a cabbie in a full sized SUV is no easy task I might add.

I digress. Where was I? Oh yes...

Monday morning... this morning, Julie comes up and nudges me awake and I can hear cracking the whip on everyone. I roll over and see that the clock read 6:03. I'm thinking take it easy, it's early, it's only 6... so I lay around for a bit knowing there's (at minimum) five minutes here for me to collect myself... I mean I've only been sleeping for three hours. Five minutes somehow turned into 25 and I hear Julie clomping up the back stairs frantically telling me that Emmah needs to get to sectionals (band). Well, that's what it sounded like to me coming around our of my morning stupor... then again, she could've said get out of bed or I will kick you in the... insert a word that kinda rhymes with sectionals. I again look toward the clock and say, "take it easy... it's only 6:30... I mean have you looked at a clock?" She then looks not at a clock but out the window and it was around this time I realize it's kind of too light outside for it to be just 6:30.

What the hell just happened while I was sleeping here?

For that answer, we have to go back a Christmas or two... or several. It was at that time that Julie's mom got everyone self setting alarm clocks... all you had to do was plug it into the wall and just like magic, it set itself... like the one next to me at my side of the bed. They work great... when the power goes out and then comes back on, it's not blinking 12:00... it sets itself.

Of course over the last couple of years, they've moved when we turn the clocks back to standard time. Problem is, for whatever reason, this clock doesn't recognize this change and changes based on the old date, as in last night. See what I thought was 6am was really 7am... and what I thought was 6:30am was really 7:30. To compound the problem, Julie overslept due to the unhappiness going on in the family room last night... thus explaining Julie's franticness and adding to my confusion of the morning.

Emmah will not be making sectionals seeing that we've managed to eclipse our normal DTG and so I end up hopping into some clothes and dash out the door with all the kids in tow. When we are running too behind, I reverse order... I take Nick, Jake and Rachael first and then Emmah. Nick, Jake and Rachael can't be late again or else it's a detention... they have been late twice and on the third it's detention time. Even a cabbie can't bend time all of the time.

On a personal level... worst part of all this (other than the running late and in a mental fog) is that in my haste to get out the door, I didn't get the chance to stop off at the wee room and have my morning pee. Compounding this problem is the new drop-off/pick-up configuration at Emmah's school. It used to be a free for all in that lot... cars coming from every which way. It used to that you could be rewarded with some aggressive maneuvering enabling you to make your way to the gate. Not any more... they've decided to make two drive-up lanes... great in theory unless you're boxed in near the end or in the middle and can't escape the two lane traffic jam. Being left to the mercy of other drivers deciding on when I can go isn't exactly something (especially in this situation) I dig... and speaking of going... I still had to GO! There was some mild concern, on my part, of wetting myself. Luckily for me (and my pants) traffic started to move and I made it home... dry.

When the kids cleaned the family room... basically without having to be told... I should've known that something was amiss and that we were falling into some kind of side zone/worm hole here inside our own personal twilight zone.