The rants of a tired woman ...

Early this morning, before the sun was really up, I was awoken.  Not by children, as is the norm.  But by the roaring sound of a lawn mower.  I actually ignored it.  Surely I was dreaming.  It must be my mind making sense of the shower going as Clark Kent prepared for work.  But as it continued and I heard the normal morning sounds of someone attempting to function early in the morning after very little sleep in the kitchen (everything seems to be 20x louder then, right?), I realized it was in fact someone cutting the grass.  As the sound continued to reverberate around my bedroom, I peeled my eyelids back and looked at the clock.  6:30am. Who on God’s green earth mows their grass at 6:30 in the morning?!? “Someone who’s trying to beat the heat and the rain” Clark Kent informed me.  Yeah, still no excuse.  It’s 6:30am.  Not everyone gets up and goes to work, or gets up with the sun.  Of course, my girls are still sleeping.  It didn’t bother them one bit.  Just me.  Monkey Man and Bug are up, but they are always up at 6:15am.  Every day.  No need for alarms here.  As Clark Kent walked out the door I asked him to go kindly punch the man in the face on his way to work.  I didn’t think it an odd request.  It’s before 7:30am. That’s the acceptable time to me.  By 7:30am, even late nighters should have gotten a couple hours sleep.  The sun is up, but it’s not hot.  I never let my dogs bark before 7:30am.  They know.  6:30am is not acceptable screaming time.  It’s not acceptable loud noise time. 

Couple months ago I was mowing the grass at 8:30pm.  Yeah, it was later.  The sun was going down.  But Clark Kent was traveling, and I waited until Monkey Man and Bug were sleeping.  Peanut and Bean were up watching a movie.  It wasn’t the same temperature as the surface of the sun anymore.  I didn’t have 4 kids running amuck (or sitting amuck in a bouncer, because let’s be honest, Bug doesn’t run anywhere) Out comes Mr. 6:30am to “walk” and scoff at me mowing the grass so late.  Why was it so late?  Because the other choice is 6:30am and that’s too darned early.  Mr. Scoffer Head.  But he’s not alone.  We have the Psychos who live behind us.  Mr. and Mrs. Psycho had someone come repair their roof a while back.  We’ve had lots of storm damage here in Memphis.  Just a bad season, really.  It took most of our backyard stuff.  Table, play set, slide, swings.  Thankfully not our roof.  But it damaged the Psychos roof.  And so they had someone come repair it.  At 5:15am!  On a school day.  And roof repair people are not quiet.  They have to communicate from the ground to the roof of your house.  And peel off the shingles.  And throw them to the ground.  And hammer.  There’s always so much hammering (why is there so much hammering at first?  Aren’t they removing stuff?).  I was up.  Peanut was up.  Bean and Monkey Man were up.  Bug didn’t care.  Babies don’t.  Noise is noise is noise to them, and they either choose to hear it or ignore it.  The child can sleep through roofers taking off shingles, but drop a spoon on the kitchen floor and WHAMMO the kid is wide awake ready to play. Right?  Anyhoo, we were all up early for the Psychos and their roof repair.  And before you defend them, it was March.  So no, it wasn’t going to be 500 degrees later, but the sun was still going to be up until 7:30pm or so.  So I let our dogs out.  That’s how I dealt.  Why?  We have 3 dogs, and the littlest one is a teeny dog with an incredibly annoying teeny dog bark.  And it doesn’t stop.  Ever.  He barks like a really cheap car alarm.  Incessantly.  That was punishment enough for anyone.  Booyah.  I win.

I think tomorrow, around 6:00am, my kids and I will get up and have a parade down the street toward Mr. Grass Mowing Man’s house.  I’ll give them each a pot or pan and we’ll be a band.  Singing and playing our songs in our special “Wake Up Jack!” parade.  We’ll sing great songs like “Wake up you sleepy head” and “Good morning to you!” and he’ll be okay with it.  Right?  Yeah, not so much.  And really, as much as I love the Memphis Police Department, I don’t want them visiting my house.  So probably I’ll not do that.  But I’ll think about it.  Really hard.  I’ll stand outside and think about it.  So somehow I’ll feel justified at being awake today.  When it’s 7:45am, and it’s still not hot or raining.  And it’s after the acceptable time to be awake according to the Laws of Jess.  And we all know that’s what matters.  I am important after all. So I’m bothering to tell you all this.