The winner of last night’s sleep-off was Porter – but purely in terms of consecutive sleep hours, which was 8. Nevermind that it was from 7:00pm to 3:00am. From that point on it was just two more hours of fruitless attempts at getting him back to sleep.

Stella’s cumulative sleep time will never be actually known, but from the time the lights were turned out, until the time she was finally granted permission to be “up” at 5:15am (new time) she emerged from her bedroom no less than a dozen times. To be truthful, I don’t know if she ever actually slept at all.

Steve and I probably, each, garnered between four or five hours. There was even one point (at about 3:30 am) when all four of us were up and roaming the house.

As of 7:00am this morning, Porter is already back in bed taking a nap, Stella has watched two Wonder Pets videos, we have listened to the most recent podcast version of Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, and Steve has spent the entire morning seranading me with something he created based on the opening riff of Rock Lobster, wherein he spells D-E-N-N-Y-aPOStrophE-S. He even told me that if we all went dressed as we were (me, of course in my pajamas, and going on my second day without a shower), he would buy me a new pair of shoes. I am sorry, but no matter how sleep deprived I am, I am not willing to trade my dignity for a new pair of Danskos.

One of the reasons Steve is so obnoxiously chipper is that today is The Day. A day, to him, better than all gift-giving holidays rolled into one: the return to Standard Time. No, this has nothing to do with what time it gets light, or that he has some strange vendetta against Daylight Savings Time. To a man with the thorough tendencies that he possesses, there is nothing better than the day he is allowed the celestial opportunity to get up and methodically change every single timekeeping device in our possession. I fear, however, that this holiday (yes, in Steve’s world, this is a holiday) is being diluted with the advances of technology. I could hear the crest-fallen tone in his voice as he attempted to change the time on his cell phone only to find that it updates automatically. This is also true with the computers. He hasn’t checked yet, but I think he is a tiny bit concerned that the VW will also have reset itself. This is a car, after all, that will alert you when the temperature drops below 39 degrees so you know to watch out for icy conditions. I wonder if I can program it to get up with my children at night? Ah, but I digress.

So here we are. Again. Me, complaining about the fact that I am this far from standing on the corner holding a sign that says Will Work For Sleep, Steve, celebrating the opportunity to touch all the doorknobs, and my children, reminding us that being a parent – first and foremost – requires an enduring and impenetrable sense of humor.

Oh, and I’ve gotta go, because Porter’s up again.

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Update: So how’s this for irony? After reading this post, Steve informed me that I hadn’t updated the timestamp on my blogging software. See? I’m not kidding, people.
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