The Best Time of The Day

I’m tired, just plain tired.  My muscles are tired, my bones are tired, and my eyes are tired simply from trying to keep them open.  It seems like work and my children have conspired to keep me from getting more than a couple of hours of sleep a night.  Abbie has decided that she likes to be awake from midnight to three; Gracie refuses to go down before ten; and I’ve been getting up at 3:30 to meet deadlines for a couple of programming projects.  And, of course, on the MSN homepage today is an article about how getting an extra couple of hours of sleep can make you thin.  Does that mean that the converse is true – that losing a couple of hours of sleep can make you fat?  Well, at least I have an excuse!  You would think that given the fact that I am running on sheer willpower (and a probably not too healthy dose of Diet Dr. Pepper) that my favorite time of the day would be when my poor, exhausted head finally hits my soft, sweet pillow.  Or maybe when I have a moment to myself and I can escape into a steamy hot bath.  Okay, that doesn’t happen – the steamy hot bath is shared with a 3 year old and a million bath toys, ranging from tea pots to finger paint.  Or maybe my favorite time would be that moment in the still of the night (between 2:45 and 3:00 am) when both girls are sleeping.  Nope, nope, and nope.  My favorite time of the day actually happens because I am running late for work in the morning.
Pretty much every day the past week, I’ve been about an hour late leaving for the office.  This puts me leaving at about the same time as Steve and the girls.  We follow the same route to work and school for about half of our trip.  Then, it’s time for me to turn left and Steve and the girls continue straight through a traffic light.  There’s a pretty long left-hand turn lane at this particular light, so every day, Steve stays in his lane and slows way down and I pull on into the turn lane. 
Then, I watch, with bated breath, as the dark, tinted back window of the Civic slowly goes down.  First, a little hand appears, manically waving.  And then it’s time for that smiling face.  Gracie is yelling out the window.  “Bye, Mommy!  Have Good Day!  I see you on the morrow!”  And she keeps waving and yelling until one or the other of us go through the light.  And that is the best part of my day, the part where I remember no matter how tired I am, I am amazingly blessed.