Day 2, 8am

Stacey, Kristina and I are at the lake for a week. (That's how it works up here in the Great Inland Empire, you just say "the lake" because it is uncouth to specify the lake by name, even though there are approximately 772 lakes in the area.) Just us girls, plus our collective brood of 9 kids ages 6 and under. Stacey and I arrived yesterday to lakeside bliss: beautiful cabin, good swimming set up, a paddle boat and a Costco pizza. Kristina was delayed by pesky work but will be joining the party this morning. After pizza we kissed our husbands goodbye and swore undying affection and devotion as they returned to the daily grind, with the twisted complaint that they were headed back to work while we were vacationing for a week. Stacey and I saw it more as returning to a quiet, empty house for a week but potato po tat o..

Jammies were donned and all the children, faces scrubbed, teeth sparkling, angelic expressions on their faces, were marched up the adorable wooden steps to the loft room where they each lay down in their sleeping bags, bid us goodnight with smiles and kisses and floated off to dream land.




Stacey and I took our bottle of wine out to the deck and had a lovely evening talking and laughing until we retired to sleep an uninterrupted 8 hours.

And if you believe that, have I got some low lying property in Bangladesh to sell you.

Starting with a total number of 6 children and the expectation that everyone would curl up in one room and be asleep by 8, our Sunday night tally was as follows:
- number of children banished to the bathtub - 1
- number of children asleep by 8 - 0
by 9 - 1
by 10 - 3
by 11 - 5
by 12 - 6
- number of children awake by 6 - 6.
- number of children who fell asleep in their originally assigned places- 1 (and he was in a crib).
- number of children who fell down the loft stairs or otherwise came to extreme physical harm - 0 (a victory, we think).


- number of hours of tv the children have watched since waking up at 6 (and please note time at writing is 9am) - 2.5


Stay tuned for updates.


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