An early morning at our house

It's 3:20 AM.

"Car.  Car.  Moo-sha. GREAT WALL!"  shouts AJ from his bedroom.

"AJ, quiet down!  You'll wake up the whole house."  I shout-whisper.  You know what I'm talking about.

"HI.  MOM."  Two separate words; AJ calls back as if I'm in a different wing of the house. As if our house has wings.

"Come in here and lay down with me."  I do that shout-whisper again.  AJ comes round the corner and into our room.

"Hi.  Hi.  Hmm.  Moo goo gai pan. Yeah.  HA!"  He comes over to the edge of the bed.  "Hi.  Mom.  Hi."  He's such a morning person.

Down the hall, Zack begins to whack his head on the wall.  Bang, bang, bang, bang......his way of saying, "you guys are waking me up!"  He's okay with that though.  Really he is, because he's a morning person too.

AJ hears his brother.  "Zack?  Zack.  Hi.  I, myna bah.  Tuna.  Juice?!"

"AJ, come on up here and lay down."

"Lay down.  High, Zeek!  Zeeeeeek!"  He shouts as he digs his elbow into my neck, climbing over me to lay down.

A few minutes later Mark gets up to give the boys their early morning dose of Clonidine.  Just a few drops keeps them asleep until 7 AM.  Sometimes.

He turns on the hall light and opens Zack's door just enough to squeeze through.  Zack squints, sits up, and says "All done?"  in his oh-so-cute falsetto.

"No, no.  No, no, no, no, no, not all done.  More sleeping."  Mark gives him his few drops of Clonidine and Zack lays back down.  Good boy.

Mark comes back to bed and gives AJ his few drops of miracle sleep agent.  AJ sits up.  "Zack?"

"No, Zack is sleeping."  I tell him.  "Lay down and go to sleep."

He repeats "lay down."  AJ lays his head down on mine.  Wiggles, squirms, and turns until his feet are on my head.  Then he's still.  I start to doze off.

SLAM!  Zack's come out of his room, slamming his door shut behind him.  He stomps down the hall.

AJ sits up.  "Zack?"

Zack pokes his head into our room.  "Pop?" (Zack-speak for, "I'd like to go to the basement and watch the intro to "Three Little Kittens" on my Pop Go The Wiggles DVD over and over and over.")

"No Zack, it's still nighttime."

AJ scrambles out of bed and there's no stopping them now.  Four little feet pound down the stairs.  They are up.  Mark and I do a quick round of Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who is getting up with the gruesome twosome.  I am the lucky winner.  Which is only fair, since Mark is the one who got up to get their medicine.

Time for some back-to-back Diegos.