It's 5:30 in the morning. I've been up since four.

I woke up with a headache, shuffled to the kitchen in the dark and took something for it. It went away but my mind began swirling like it does sometimes. Nothing in particular that should be keeping me up, nothing that should be causing turmoil in my brain. But it just starts firing off in all sorts of directions at once for no reason, like a snow globe shaken real hard with all the little flakes going round and round, and then I can't sleep.

I came out to the couch to see if a change of venue might help. It does sometimes. Not this time. The sky out the windows is starting to turn a lighter blue. They'll be no sleep now.

Till this afternoon after church, then I'll be aching for a nap.

I sadly have been very absent from blogging, I know. And it's not that I haven't thought about it. I have tons of things that I think of writing about. The birthday of the Lemur at the pool. Spending the 4th at my brother's house 3 hours to the west. Afternoons with the family. But there never seems to be time to just sit down and write. Days filled with the everyday. Then, when a friend from out of town visits and asks, "So, what have you been up to?", they get a blank look and a shrug, "Not much, really".

There's work, of course. Tending the house. Running errands. I usually arrive back home in time for the bathing of the children. I try to spend time with each of them. We talk about things that occupy their minds. Friends, the days adventures, funny things that happened---with the little Bear there's always a thought about Godzilla. Yet, it feels like I swing from one to the other, hand over hand like crossing the monkey bars at the playground. Not having enough time with any one of them.

I did find a good book that I'm reading to the two youngest boys at bedtime. "The invention of Hugo Caberet" by Brian Selznek. It's one of those amazing books that we find every so often that engages them and me in equal measure, at the same time. The story is dramatic, imaginative, and none of us have any idea where it will take us next, which makes it very exciting. The book has a novel convention that it's using where every so often the text will stop and the narrative is picked up by several pages of drawings, like story-boards for a movie. Then when the text picks up again, it'll start with the story where the pictures left off. These bedtime readings are full of wonderful moments where a corner is turned and Lemur and I look up at each other with a spark at what has just been revealed.

Sometimes in the day to day there are little disappointments, stresses and frustrations that are nothing to speak of, really, but have a way of making a person feel out of sorts. Slightly sad, and at the same time realizing that a body should be thankful that these little things are all we have to contend with. Yet, even realizing there's much worse that could be wrong, still not able to shake the mood.

But curling up with a freshly washed boy at each shoulder, the faint smell of soap coming off damp hair mixing with the mint of toothpaste still in the air and combining with fragrance of the pages of a new book, everything seems fall into line. The swirling stops and the flakes suspend in the air to allow you to duck under and step out of time for a moment. There is nothing but this page and the next till the chapter finishes and your realize it's getting late.

And you feel like the begging for 'one more chapter, please' means that if nothing else, at least you did one thing right today.