The Astronaut Playdate

On New Year's Eve, Jimmy and I packed up the kids and all their crap necessary items, and went to Caca and Uncle Eddie's. No, Caca is not her real name. Nor is it a pseudonym for blogging purposes. It's just who she is. She's Caca (she's also my sister). NBO love Caca and Uncle Eddie, and I knew they would be excited for a sleep over. They were not, however, excited to actually sleep. N was excited to stay up until midnight and kept herself awake by putting funny sticky notes on Uncle Pat's back (where does she get this? Certainly not the kind of thing her mom would ever do). B and O, meanwhile, took two hours to finally decide to sleep, at which point I was quite ready to join them. It was New Year's Eve, though, and since I think it's generally considered bad parenting practice to go to sleep before your six-year-old daughter, I made it til midnight.

Some time after all the other party goers had passed out fallen asleep, I was awakened by the doorbell. Doorbells at 4:30 am are generally not a good thing. I listened, heard voices talking quietly, and eventually decided I should probably get up and see what was happening. No lights on downstairs. No voices downstairs. I follow the voices toward Caca and Uncle Eddie's room, and realize that the voices actually sound like someone talking on a police radio. I briefly run several possible scenarios through my head (the police rang the doorbell, but no one answered, so now they are around the back of the house, talking on their radio? A bad guy rang the doorbell, and the police are looking for him? No, bad guys don't ring doorbells, I remind myself. You are an idiot idiot. A very tired idiot.). I listen for a minute, hear snoring, and realize that the "voices" are actually coming from a police scanner. Happy to have confirmation that everyone was safe and sound, and that I am, in fact, just an idiot, I went back to sleep. The lingering questions about the doorbell that I know I heard eventually left my mind.

That is, until very, very, early this morning, when someone rang our doorbell. The main problem with this is that we don't actually have a doorbell.  I listened, and it rang again, and I realized "Hey! That doorbell sounds exactly like the one I heard at Caca's!" and then I heard a way too chipper voice say, "Someone's here!". Suddenly, I could picture the new Christmas toy which was sent to the kids by my dear friend Bubba, who lives in New Jersey (no, that's not her real name either, nor is it a pseudonym. That's just who she is). Of course, I have no recollection of taking that toy to Caca's, which means that the kids are either getting more adept at packing their own crap necessary items, or that thing has legs. That could be a good thing. Maybe it will walk itself back to New Jersey.

Happy to have the doorbell mystery solved, I begin to drift back to sleep as the same cheery voice says "Who's here? It's an Astronaut!!". Yeah. Cause astronauts just show up at people's doors every day. That's realistic. I fall into a deeper sleep, and begin to dream about astronauts, and doorbells, and repeatedly running over toys that were strategically placed accidentally left under my back tire.

And then I feel it. The stare. I can tell there is a pair of eyes very close to my head, and I realize that a) it is way, way too early for this and b) whoever is staring at me is very, very, smelly. I open one eye and see three-year-old B inches from my face. "Mom?" he asks seriously, "Do astronauts have play dates, too?"

I have no idea. But if they do, I really hope they just knock.

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