went to bed late last night and managed to sleep in a little today. my back hurts the way it does when i sleep too long, but it was worth it anyway. today is the last day for a bit that ALL the kids will be in school. the two younger ones are on the same "track" (year round sucks, trust me) and today is their last day. taz returns in about 2 weeks leaving me the youngest. the biggest change? i can't be lazy and relax in bed (or any where else for that matter) for awhile. i actually HAVE to get up and STAY up. the hardest thing about single parenting: there's no one else to take over and give you a break. i also was minus the other disturbance i get: my 7:30 a.m. hang up call.

yes, every morning for several weeks now i have been getting a hang up call at 7:30 a.m. i have tried to do call return, it's out of the area. which, of course, means call block doesn't work either. for awhile i put up with it. i didn't want to miss important calls because one jerk seemed to think calling me was great fun. but i finally got fed up. i turned the ringer off the upstairs phone and pull the cord out of the downstairs phone. yes, i have to do that because the ONE thing that will wake me up before anything else is a phone ringing...even if it isn't in the same room. if i can hear it, i have to wake up. and if i wake up and am not thinking about it, i have to answer it. so i warned the few people who WOULD call me before 9:30 or 10 (the ones who know that for me the world doesn't start turning till 10 a.m.) that if they can't get a hold of me that early to be patient, my phones would be ring disabled. yesterday i forgot to pull the plug on the downstairs phone and listened as whoever it was tried to call 3 times. ok, so i can't say for SURE all three calls were the same person, but since no one complained about being unable to reach me it is a pretty good bet. persistent bugger. last night i remembered for today.

so this morning i woke up long enough and just enough to listen and make sure all the kids got off to school ok. oldest leaves on her own first, VERY early (when i start school, if i haven't managed an alarm clock by then, i will have HER wake me up). second girl gets son out and then takes off herself. if his bus is late, i get up and send her on her way so she won't miss hers. youngest gets picked up by dad and driven in last. once they were all off safely, i rolled over and went right back to sleep. no calls. no kids. nothing to disturb my slumber, so i was allowed to sleep as long as i wanted and to wake up naturally. it was soooooooooooo nice.

and even when i woke up, i LAID there. i didn't have to go rushing to answer a phone, save or chastise a kid, frantically dress to answer the door, nothing. so i was able to enjoy the peace and quiet in my warm bed and wake up nice and slow and in my own time. it was soooo nice. and such a rare thing for me to be able to do. and soon to become rarer. when school begins in january i will have to be out of the house no later than 7 a.m. to make morning classes (the good news: dad is willing to watch and get kiddos off to school as necessary, and watch them when they are off track). so i really enjoyed this morning and drew it out as long as i possibly could.

but once i am awake, i am AWAKE. and i can't stay still long. so here i am, in a much better mood than i have been for a few days, more relaxed. i feel like i got to pamper myself a little. morning world. now to move on to the rest of my day.