Just so we're clear: if this post really sucks it's all Spawnling's fault.

I went to bed at a decent Maven hour of midnight. I figured I would get a good night's sleep that way. Seven hours to this new vegetarian is like sleeping in. I used to wake up drained and now I wake up refreshed after five or six solid hours.

Five or six solid hours.

Not an hour of sleep in my own bed before Spawnling calls me, wide awake, from his bed.

Not another hour of trying to get him back to sleep in his bed while he kicks the wall as I nurse him.

Not admitting defeat, heading down to the living room with a blanket and a pillow.

Not another few minutes finding the all-night preschooler channel, a granola bar for each of us and some orange juice for him.

Not another hour of him talking my ear off as I try to go to sleep.

And certainly not another couple of hours of him rolling around on top of my snoozing body, waking me up, elbowing me in the ribs, kicking off my covers and trying to get comfy.

I woke up sometime after it was light out with feet in my face. Smelly toddler feet with the toes creeping into my nose. He was almost snoring. I was a mess. Not even a hot mess. A mess.

I left him on the couch and crawled into my bedroom. Gutsy had made his way in to cuddle daddy and was coughing quite a bit. I was able to ignore him and go to sleep anyway.

Five minutes later the alarm clock went off.

I tried to throw it into the yard but there was a damn window there.

Five or six hours of solid sleep, not seven hours of broken sleep. I've realized there is a big difference.

This afternoon I attempted to sleep while Gutsy and evil, evil Spawnling were playing nicely on the floor. I whispered my plan to the Gutsmeister who nodded maturely and said he'd watch his brother while I tried to catch a few winks on the couch.

Contrary to what you might hear, not all stay-at-home-moms nap during the day. In fact, once I had my second child I became the anti-napper. I would rather bum around on the computer, clean the house, watch some trashy TV or gossip on the phone with a coffee in hand. Very rarely am I exhausted enough to sleep. But today was one of those days where I knew it was an absolute must.

Good thing I have all that good karma from all those kind deeds and positive energy I put out all the time. I figured I would cash some of that in so I could get some much needed shut-eye.

Apparently I used all the good karma in my savings account for the damn picture that makes me look hot, because the next thing I knew I had Spawnling sticking a finger in my ear saying "Wake up, Mommy! What you doin'? You seeping? I wan' to play! Come on, Mommy! My finguh is in yo ear, see?"

Oh, I see.

When Spawnling decided to fall asleep an hour later while watching Dora I wasn't having any of it. No way was the gremlin going to get away with napping when I couldn't. No way was he going to recharge his little batteries and pull an all-nighter again. So I picked him up and swung him around with my arms under his belly until he woke up in protest.

Protest he did, but he also woke up and stayed up until his bedtime. Then I went and saw the lovely Coffee Fairy for her birthday (and gave her - what else - a gift card to one of our favourite coffee shops because it's all about me, me, me and my damn lattes and don't you forget it), came home, watched a great documentary, and am now blogging.

He's still sleeping. I'm fried. I should go to bed. I will go to bed. I just have to figure out a witty way to finish this post, and then edit it.

No. Instead I"ll use my 'get out of being witty' card for the night and top it off with the 'you may edit this for errors in the morning' card, too. I've used two of my three lifelines, but I did make it to the end of the post so that counts for something.

Goodnight. Let's hope it is, anyway. Otherwise I may consider a demerol drip, either for him or for me. Preferably both.