we love life

Last night, before we went to bed, we reminded the children that tomorrow (today) was the weekend. And on the weekends, we don't have to get up early for school or work. As such, the children, and us, would have the distinct pleasure of sleeping in past early o'clock.



It really seemed that everyone was so excited at the prospect of waking up in the morning, only to discover that they could roll over and go right back to sleep. And yet, this morning, our children - who we have to DRAG out of bed most weekday mornings - were climbing all over us at 30 minutes before the typical weekday wake up time.

Given that Charlie and I stayed up late last night painting (again) and then stayed up even later watching a classic Tom Hanks movie, the children waking up early this morning was a terribly painful inconvenience for us.



As we were laying in bed with our brood of offspring, we first tried to convince them to go back to sleep or play the QUIET game. And when that was unsuccessful, and they kept chattering on and on about the birds chirping and the air getting cooler and how many fun things we were going to do today, we told them that tomorrow they all have to get up for school. Leaving out the part that Sunday school is different in that Daddy and Mommy can sleep in until the sun has at least cleared the horizon.

My husband and I were slowly regaining our consciousness, when Henry climbed over my head and jumping off the bed, ran down the hallway to the kitchen and began to fumble around. While Charlie and I lay there, bargaining with each other to get up to go investigate WHAT exactly Henry was doing, our little tot made his way back in to our bedroom.

In one arm he was clutching a box of cinnamon Life cereal and an over-sized plastic serving spoon. With the other arm, he was dragging behind him a gallon of milk.



He came over to my side of the bed and hoisting the box of cereal up on my pillow declared, "I yuv Yife!*" At the site of the cereal box - all of the children jumped up and started bouncing around the bed while singing, "We LOVE Life! WE LOVE LIFE!!"



Charlie and I nodded in agreement that we, too, love Life.

So we dragged ourselves out of bed.



And gratefully made breakfast.

*Edited to add: For the purpose of posterity, a similar scene repeated itself this morning, and as I was listening to Henry I heard his pronunciation for "L" is "Ya" as opposed to "Wa". So Life is not "Wife" but rather, "Yife"!