My Weekend's Too Short

I'm hitting the mattress early tonight. I'm just worn out.

These last two nights I was unable to sleep well because I had two sets of hands and two sets of feet probing, kicking, rubbing, poking, banging, sliding, crawling and hitting me. Now some of you may think this is a good thing, and it would if it were Dave Baptista but no, it was Mooka and Butterfly sleeping over this weekend. Mooka usually sleeps w/his aunt Niece but Friday night he insisted on sharing my bed w/me and his two year old sister Butterfly.

Both of these kids sleep like miniature horses and they both SNORE!! Loudly!! Having them in bed w/me also meant my not being able to open the window to see the moon and cool down my room. I didn't want them to get chilled after their showers so I had to make do in my hot room and pray I didn't roll over the little girl and smother her.

All in all it was a great weekend. I got a lot of nothing done, but I did walk around the Biltmore Fashion Mall in some of the prettiest weather God ever sent to Phoenix. I try not to be so sedentary when the kids are here and they incent me to get up and move. Plus, it's hard focusing on troubles when kids are around; they don't care about your troubles, they want to eat cereal, watch Saturday morning cartoons, tear up the front room, drip afore-mentioned cereal from table to sink, fight about who had a particular toy first and bring you joy and laughter.

I did do something unique this weekend: Saturday morning I wanted to actually cook for the kids. I can count on one hand minus three fingers the number of times I've cooked for the kids. I'm not a great cook. I'm not a good cook. I can just pass making a decent peanut butter sandwich. My sister's one of the greatest cooks I've ever eaten from (or met) so she's responsible for the kids' nourishment. But this Saturday, I wanted to cook and like all well laid plans....

My first mistake was allowing Ma (Butterfly) to ride her tricycle outside while I was cooking bacon. Now I know that the hotter the skillet, the crispier the bacon so I had my four or five strips there and it was cooking nicely. I noticed the kids coughing a bit but thought nothing of it until Mooka asked if we could open a window or door. "What for?" I asked. It was still chilly outside. "It's a lot of smoke in here." he replied, swatting at the smoke like a true swordsman.

Ok, I conceded. Let's open the door so the smoke alarms don't go off and wake Wooka. I'm still watching the bacon and it's crinkling up nicely but now with the door open, Ma's quest to ride her trike is overwhelming her so I dress her for the cold. In the meantime, Mooka's coughing reminds me of the bacon on the stove. It was some of the best bacon I'd ever made in my life. Crsipy. Brown. I should have taken pictures. But there is a lot of smoke in the house so I turn off the skillet to watch Ma on the trike

As I'm sitting out on the porch I notice smoke filtering out the door and I think to myself, "That's odd. There must have been more smoke than I realized." By this time more smoke is coming out of the house and two of the smoke detectors are blaring. I go back in the kitchen and discover I hadn't turned off the fire under the skillet and it's smoking like Jackie Gleason after surgery.

Of course all the noise brings Wooka up to see what's going on. After proudly showing off my bacon and discounting the burning skillet as a one off situation, she decides we'd all be better off if she goes and brings back breakfast. Hey. I tried.

Well, that's it for my weekend. Monday looms bright and promising.

The Cardinals have made it to the NFC Conference game against the Eagles. I sure wish it were the Cowboys but that's okay. It could be worse. I mean, I could be a Titans fan right?

I've won some awards that you should know about. From Jeni:

From UglyBlackJohn: