Penny woke up somewhere between 5:30 and 5:45 this morning. I made her go back to bed and then refused to get up again until my alarm had gone off at 6, but it's not like I actually got to go back to sleep.

Once I got up, Penny was fine until we left the house, and then she decided she'd brought the wrong toy with her in the car. Since I was disinclined to go back and get the right toy, she cried... Oh, almost halfway to school.

Then, when we got to school, her friend TJ wasn't there. She wasn't quite sure how to handle school without TJ, and she wouldn't do the princess dance with me, and she just wanted me to sit and hold her. (She's a little bit whiny when she's tired, just like me.)

Eventually, the promise of a doughnut for breakfast lured her from my lap to Ms. Darlene's, and I got her to give me a kiss before I headed out to work. When I looked back in through the windows, it looked like she'd asked Ms. Darlene to put her hair up in pigtails.

I almost fell asleep in the car on the way to work. At a red light, not moving, but still.

A year ago, getting to sleep until 5:45 was a huge luxury. Why can I not cope with it now?

Sometimes, as I'm drifting off to sleep at night, I imagine scenes from whatever I'm writing, or from one of the going games. Sometimes I indulge in little fantasies.

Lately, the nightly fantasy has been about a long, hard... backrub.

And on that note, I'm off for some coffee.

--Liz