Once again, I missed the memo about the Tuesday all-nighter to be held in my living room. Whoever is not cc'ing me on these things really needs to be put on administrative leave.

The boy and the baby both took early evening naps and I thought they might just be extra tired and therefore planning to sleep on through the night. They had a late lunch, too, so I wasn't stressing about dinner.

Hah! Hahahaha! Muwahahahahahahaha! *cough*

Uh, no. I got my oldest settled, and for ten glorious minutes, there was silence. I turned off the TV, and crawled into bed and just lay there, basking in the stillness of my house.

I heard shuffling footsteps heading for the kitchen. They retraced to my bedside and the tousled head of my son appeared two inches from my face. "Mommy. HUNGRY."

Sigh.

I got up, made some scrambled eggs and toast and gave him a glass of milk. He was like a space traveler coming out of hypersleep. He was groggy at first, but by the time the meal was complete, he was ready to kick some alien butt. In that it was 9 o'clock, I decided he could play on the floor while I watched The Amazing Race. (That entepreneur guy, yelling at his wife, and her high pitched drill-sounding whining voice...aaaargh!)

As the show ended, I broached the B word. "Bedtime, honey." He put up a half-hearted protest, but allowed me to lead him back to his bed.

I flipped off the TV, and headed back to my room. As I passed the baby's room, I heard stirring. I began to tiptoe with exaggerated movements. As I got one knee up onto my mattress, she let loose.

"Mama! Up, up! Dee-nah! Deeeee-naaaaaah!"

More eggs. More toast. More milk... oh. Out of milk. Open soy milk. Whew. Crisis averted. Baby wiped down, snuggled, sang to, tucked back in, back to bed. Except not. More alien butt-kicking was on the agenda.

After a prolonged make-out session (where the baby had me by my ears and was kissing me REALLY. HARD. and then saying "wuv mama" and then repeating 700 times) she conked out on my chest, and I carried her back to bed.

As I burrowed into my pillow, the boy showed up next to me again, with an assortment of dinosaurs and some burning questions. I tried to get him to snuggle with me, or with the hubs, but no, I found myself answering such important queries as "Wanna see my patootience?" and "Have you ever eaten a dino nugget, get it? Dino nugget, Mommy. Nugget?"

Finally, I shooed him out to the living room, where he played with his dinos and I reclined on the couch, watching for signs of weakness where I could drop him with a bedtime story. The baby heard the party, because my son has not learned volume control. Everything is pretty much shouted. Of course, he spends much of his day jumping, too.

I went in to try and settle the baby, and discovered that soy milk should still be avoided at bedtime - it works like a laxative on my youngest. I tried using my son's rosy outlook "It's a diaper celebration! A blow-out of epic proportions! Whee!" but yeah. No.

I'm adding a new item to my list of parenting must-haves. Stun-gun, cattle-prod AND flamethrower. Because it would have been much easier to incinerate the crib than wipe the whole thing down.

Baby bathed, dressed, sheets changed. "No crib! No crib!"

Fantastic. I choose a couple of books and settle in on the couch with a kid on each side. Mercifully, my oldest slept through all this.

I read for an hour and carried sleepy eyed children back to their beds. I glanced at the clock: 2 o'clock in the morning. At least there was no school to rush off to this morning. We could sleep in.

Uh, no. I've been up since 4:45.

By rights I should be off my game. Yet, it's a crisp morning, with wonderful golden light filling my home and bright blue skies. I have lots of errands and busy work ahead of me today, and I feel good. Must be the baby kiss attack and patootience viewing. A smile keeps creeping onto my face. I feel like I could kick some serious alien butt. Or, I guess I could just blast 'em with death rays from my cyclops eye.