The Night Owls

So I apparently have two very talented kids. Yes...they can do a very neat trick. They can shape-shift. By day they are monkeys and come evening, they shape-shift into owls. Not just any owls though. Night owls. Which I'm finding are the most annoying kinds of owls. I knew that kids take after their parents in a lot of aspects. But I had no idea that somewhere down the line, they could even pick up on your past habits. Pre-kids, I was the worst kind of night owl myself. Starting in college, I would stay up to the wee hours in the morning doing all sorts of things, from art projects to watching movies and chatting on the internet (which my poor roommate...sorry Mandy...had to deal with). I used to love to go to midnight movie openings and stay out until 3 or 4 in the morning. Alas...having children has given me a rude awakening on the true value of sleep. Since I got pregnant with Alex back in January of 2006, I don't believe I have gotten a full night of sleep since. Once he was big enough to beat my bladder to a pulp while growing him in my belly, I was up peeing all night. I truly believe that God tells the baby to beat your bladder so that you will get used to waking up every hour on the hour for the rest of your life. Now I have no stamina for the likes of those night owl days. I can manage a meager 1:00 in the morning on the weekends, but my days of all-nighters are far behind me I fear. Of course, their dad isn't exactly innocently going to bed at 10:30 like the good role model. No...he is guilty of weekend WOW binges. (that's World Of Warcraft for all you non-gamers) He can easly stay up until 4 or 5 in the morning on weekends. Of course, he doesn't have the joy of waking up 5 times a night with the kids and waking up at the butt-crack of dawn.

Here they are planning their nightly antics together.

So back to the kids. Yes...they are now taking after their mother-dearest and enjoying the fruits of the night hours. Last night, miss Abby decided to go on a sleeping strike and was up until 1:11 a.m. Alex wasn't guilt-free for the sleepless night either. He didn't pass out until well after 11:30. So you might be thinking that these late nights make for sleeping in for mama in the morning, right? No, no, no...no such thing. They were both wide awake and ready to start the day by 8:50 a.m. *sigh* I took a long look at myself in the mirror tonight and realized that I do, in fact, have the tell tale signs of weariness on my face. The dark circles and wrinkles don't lie, my friends. A night owl no more am I, but rather a tired mama with her two mini-night owls. Ahh...chips off the ol' block.