Oh What a NIght...

And no, it isn’t late December back in ‘63, and it wasn’t a very special night for me....

The wrestling tournament, as you read, was fine, and we got home around 9 to find the house relatively calm. Salinda and Jimmy were at some late night party at the middle school. As I was trying to get people to go to bed, Bart told me he had agreed to pick them up at 11:30. I had told them they could walk home (it’s about two blocks in a very safe small town) but he had offered, assuming I had said he would, and then when he when he became instant “hero dad” by offering to get them, he couldn’t back out. So, that already meant that if I went to bed at 10, I would be awakened at 11:30.

So Bart and I tried to have a conversation for a while, taking advantage of that free time, but Tony, whose current meds are keeping him awake at night, would not go to bed. When he finally did go it was almost 10:45. Bart decided I could go ahead and go to sleep. At 11:20, Salinda called the HOUSE to make SURE her dad was coming for her. Now, he has a silent vibrating cell phone in his pocket, but she had to call the phone by my EAR instead. I was not that nice to her, especially since when I called Bart’s cell, he was sitting in the car in front of the school and had she LOOKED instead of called, I’d still have been asleep. At 11:35 Jimmy and Salinda came in and banged around until 11:45 or so.

At 12:15 or something, Rand and John got in a huge screaming fight in the basement. They woke up Jimmy, Mike, me and I don’t know who else. We’ve been letting them choose their bedtime as long as they don’t bug anyone else, but THAT is stopping. John had a 2 hour nap after school last night, so he wasn’t tired last night, but Rand was, and they are screaming at the top of their lungs at each other. Of course, I got up and dealt with it. By this time it’s 12:30 or so and I come in and say to Bart, “You know, you’re going to sleep through the rapture. The trumpet blasts won’t even wake you” which, of course, he didn’t hear. Sitting listening for another fight, I didn’t fall asleep until after 1. Now John won’t get up.

My philosophy is this: You can choose your sleeping patterns if they don’t affect everyone else. But if they do, then you can’t choose them.

Now I have the privilege of trying to get JOhn out of bed.