1. How in the Hell does anyone co-sleep and not look one hundred?

I’m getting older by the second. Wednesday is senior citizens day at Rose’s.

2. Again, people choose this as a way of life?

I’m ready to drink a bottle of cough syrup just to get some shut eye with a spindly special needs three year old who is real chatty even though he’s basically nonverbal.

3. Why is the dog so thirsty?

She is old and wonderful, but she lies there and the minute she senses me being awake, she starts pacing and I’m forced to fill up her water bowl in the bathroom. Amos loves this activity and hops out of bed. It is now 1:33am.

4. No one but me turns the lights off.

I was raised by a man who forced you to pay him a quarter for lights left on and here I sit, in the dead of night, living it up in a virtual light bright.

5. I should have studied to be a sleep trainer.

Is there such a thing? What a useful degree. My degrees, four of them, FOUR, are worthless except to prove that parenting is a trip into uncharted waters. Salem Academy? Meredith College? The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill? NC State?

6. The house is wonderfully quiet.

Maybe I should become a nurse and work nights or I could pretend to be a nurse and sleep during the day and just hang out downstairs at night, all alone.

7. I think I need Invisalign.

My bottom right pointy tooth is getting further and further out and I’m thinking I am starting to look like a bulldog.

8. I have got to buy new toothbrushes.

I threw them away after the flu as my mother directed and haven’t gotten any more. Don’t you dare start counting days. After all, I have been using one of Amos’ old ones.

9. I have an article on debutantes due tomorrow.

I realize this sounds ridiculous and I’m thinking I can not be an authority as a daughter of Yankees may be called out by legitimate Southerners.

10. My children all took baths.

Damn it, they did not. Thomas took a shower and then went to play tennis and Amos refused so he got the wet wipe wash down.

11. We head to Florida on Tuesday and I wonder if the schools will step up the mean letter campaign.

11 days for one child…in the past three weeks. It hurts me more than it hurts them and we did do that dern science project.