Sleep ... Not So Much

OK, I must warn you now. I am likely to ramble. I do that when I am tired. And, golly bob howdy, am I tired now! Ya see, Hattie decided at 3AM that the whole sleep thing is highly overrated. And she decided, further, that if she was gonna be up then so was everyone else! And, being the efficient girl that she is, she promptly got everyone else in the house up with her.

At 3 AM!

That is three o'clock. In the MORNING!

Still dark. Still s'posed to be sleeping.

But, oh no. Not in our house.

Hubby and I actually argued over which one of us would go up to get her to quiet down. It was something like this:

"You better go, I can't guarantee that I won't harm her sweet little self"

"Oh no, YOU better go, 'cause I can pretty much guarantee I WILL!!!"

Before you call the authorities, please know that she suffered no harm whatsoever. Which, in and of itself, is a miracle. Ya know, considering the fact that she woke us up and all.

Did I mention that it was THREE IN THE MORNING!!!!

It was!

So, now here we are at 11:32 AM and we are all still awake. Sophie is the only one who got any sleep at all. Hattie is going strong. I am fading fast and Hubby is hooked up to a caffiene IV at work. Bed time is coming early tonight!!!

So, other than that, I have some heart wrenching news to share. And, it could be the LACK OF SLEEP, but my heart is simply broken. Crushed.

Sophie is afraid of muppets. I KNOW!! This from the child of the girl who LIVED for the muppets. Who has every single muppet movie in the video collection - some still on VHS even! Who could not wait for the day that her children were old enough to justify watching Sesame Street on a daily basis.

It started yesterday when we were at the Christian's house for a playdate. They have a Hokey Pokey Elmo. And the thing scared the tarnation out of my girl.

Now, frankly, the dancing Elmo's are not my favorite either. So I didn't think much of it. But then today we were watching Sesame Street and she cried each and every time a muppet came on the screen. Cookie Monster. Grover. Rosita. Zoe. Elmo. And, the most heart wrenching of all ... Ernie.



And, I tell you, I almost cried. I loved Ernie when I was a child. And I mean LOVED him. I thought he was real and just KNEW that I would marry Ernie someday. At one point I embarrassed my entire family with my unbridled affection for Ernie.

See, my sister had just gotten married and I was her flower girl. I was four years old with an up-do to end all up-do's. I was looking good y'all! After the wedding mom and dad packed us all into the car for a road trip to Grandma's house. The dress had come up over the hair. A turtle neck sweater had gone down over the hair and I had slept - for hours in a car - on the hair when we pulled into a truck stop to eat. I still - mistakenly - thought I was lookin' good. I am told that I - in actuality - looked like a crazed orphan. Anyway, there we are, sitting in a booth on the other side of the restaurant when in walks a tall dude in a striped sweater with crazy black hair stickin' up all over the place.

I went NUTS! I started screaming at the top of my lungs "ERNIE!!! ERNIE, IT'S MEEEEEE!!!!" And with that I jumped from my seat and ran across the place to get to him. Still screaming and still calling the poor guy Ernie.

Waitresses were on the floor laughing. My siblings were under the table hiding. And my parents were having an argument that went something like this:

"You better go, I can't guarantee that I won't harm her sweet little self"

"Oh no, YOU better go, 'cause I can pretty much guarantee I WILL!!!"

Hattie and I are both alive. We HAVe to live. We have a LOT to teach sweet Miss Sophie!!!!!!

Repeat after me - "muppets are our FRIENDS!!!"