When in doubt, lock yourself in the bathroom and regroup

My husband had to leave suddenly on a business trip Thursday night. Suddenly is always a fun way for a spouse to depart. It often includes a sink full of dishes and a laundry backlog for you to take care of while they are gone. Oh, the joy.

The children and the dogs have been doing their best to make the first three days of his trip extra challenging too. Sleep deprivation being their modus operandi. They've been triple teaming me to ensure I don't get more than two hours of sleep in a row.

My three year old's plan of attack has been an ongoing debate about whether or not he should sleep in his bed. Not necessarily at bedtime either. Sometimes that's a concern that doesn't hit him until 2 am. One time we even got to debate it twice in one night.

He's usually good for a solid hour of debating. I tend to go with pleading and back patting whereas he opts for tears and irrational statements. By the time we're done, the newest Kindergartner is awake. And if she's awake, by golly, she's going to need to point it out. And by then the dogs are awake too and then they're waking up the three year old I just got to sleep. One time they did it by growling and wrestling around in the hall outside his door. Another time they decided to be more efficient and just go in and lick his face. Perfect.

My personal favorite though is the periodic wake up calls throughout the night by our three dogs wanting to go out. My husband can't figure out why they only do this when he's out of town. I can't figure out why he can't figure that out.

He claims they'll go back to sleep if I just ignore them. Except I'm sort of unclear how I'm supposed to ignore a 40 pound dog repeatedly springing off and on the bed and the giant pony puppy moaning next to my face. So I drag myself up and let them out. Several minutes after I lay back down and generally right as I'm about to fall back to sleep, I hear the scratching at the door signaling they're ready to come in. But here's where it gets good. Because when I get to the door, it's really only one of them that's ready to come back in. The other one is still partying the night away.

I know what you're thinking. Just tell the other dog to get his butt in the house and be done with it. But yelling and standing in the open door with the cold air coming in is not conducive to falling right back to sleep. In fact, it pretty much guarantees I'll be awake for another hour. So I leave that rogue party animal outside and pray that he'll decide he likes it out there so much he never wants to come back in again. And then I lay back down until he's ready to come back in five minutes later. Generally right as I'm about to fall back asleep again.

Three times getting up and out of bed just for one trip outside makes me want to throttle them. And it happens at least twice a night. It's awesome. Last night before bed when I pictured them waking me up again, I couldn't decide if I would just scream obscenities at them from afar or if I'd feel the need to wrestle their leaping bodies to the ground and hiss at them face to face.

I hope I never get captured by enemy troops and subjected to sleep deprivation torture. Not that I know anything you'd need to torture me to get me to tell you. But if I did, no one needs to be under the illusion that I'd be able to hold out. I'd sell my own mother down the river by the second night because I am inescapably weak and pathetic when I'm exhausted.

Yesterday was actually the roughest. Today I actually resemble a human. Yesterday, not so much. Unless crabby and shrieky are what you look for in a human. The bad part is that a crabby and shrieky mother tends to lead to weepy and whiny children and next thing you know it's a vicious cycle. At one point I locked myself in the bathroom to regroup. After getting my second wind, I also successfully got everyone dressed and out the door to run errands by 4 pm. Way to be, crabby and shrieky me! Yeah!

Today, no one's dressed yet but I did get the dishes done and produced enough clean underwear to get everyone through the week. So it's been a successful day is what I'm saying. The wrecking crew is currently watching Mary Poppins. I had hoped it might buy me an hour alone but so far, I've had a pop in to discuss lip gloss and another pop in that required butt wiping. So I guess maybe it's not working. Eh. Semi alone's not bad. And neither are my kids. For example, even a crabby and shrieky mother can appreciate this:

They're princesses. Both of them. One of the many perks of having a big sister is that she can dress you up in heels and teach you how to pose like a super model. Lucky kid!