Overslept!

First of all, inspired by this picture I chose to illustrate our oversleeping morning, I shall tell you a brief anecdote.  When my sister and I were children (roughly 7 and 10 respectively) she loved My Little Ponies.  I did not. I wanted to pretend we were adventurers and play outside in the mud.  One day, she and I were arguing because she wanted to play ponies and I wanted to be adventurers.  She said "I wish Kathy were my sister because then I would play ponies with her every day!" I stormed off and wrote the following into my Hello Kitty Diary:

Elizabeth wishes Kathy were her sister so she could play ponies more.  Well, I have a plan. Every day, I'm going to knock over one of Elizabeth's My Little Ponies on her shelf.  Today I'm knocking over Sundance. Tomorrow...Applejack.

I knew it would happen even as I went to sleep last night.  The kids and I had a lovely time at their school's craft night, though it ended with me having some parenting troubles.  Coen wasn't listening to me which is extremely rare and I panicked.  Everyone was there, watching me unable to control my eight-year-old.  EEEEK!!!!   And I made an enormous empty threat that parents tend to do when they don't know what else to do.  I told Coen to sit on the bench and wait for me and if he even moved, I was going to take away all his Pokemon cards for the rest of his life.  Pretty steep.  In the parking lot, on the way out of school, Coen spoke up.

"Mommy?  I would like to talk about what happened, but I don't want you to get mad at me again."

"Okay" I said, "We can talk about it."

"Well..."  he ventured. "I think that maybe that wouldn't have been a fair punishment.  I usually listen. That was the first time I didn't listen when you said it was time to go.  Maybe if it was the hundredth time I didn't listen, then that would be a fair punishment."

Tad and I, after finally getting our kids tucked into bed two hours later than usual, talked about how its been since I've gotten home from New York. I've been rather timid as a parent, I think, overshadowed by guilt of being gone so much this month, and also just mental exhaustion from being sad about Harald.  And Tad has been annoyed. And the more annoyed he's gotten with my timidity, the timider I've gotten.  Vicious cycle.  But we had a nice, long, fruitful talk last night.

When I set the alarm, I plugged it  in (it usually runs on batteries) thinking just in case... and fell asleep.  The next thing I knew, Tad was saying, "Alie? I'm getting in the shower. It's seven."

SEVEN!!!???

I needed to be to work at 7:30.  I went up to wake the kids after getting coffee on.  They were both extremely asleep.  On usual mornings, they are so slow getting dressed I actually have to practice deep breathing and convincing myself that I won't spend the rest of my life, sitting between their rooms in the hall...waiting.  So when I woke them, I stroked their little faces and said in a gentle voice, "You guys?  We are very late today. We slept too late.  So its going to be a special morning.  We won't eat at the table but you can bring POP TARTS in the car."

They have never gotten dressed so fast and so easily in all my days of parenthood.

I shall have to weight the benefits/disadvantages of having Pop Tarts in the car every day.

Just kidding.

Or am I?