Why I chose Alex and the skateboard over sleep

It may sound like a simple choice. However, if I'm being honest, it wasn't. It has been a very busy few weeks. We are still in the midst of home renovations which just adds to the chaos that kids bring. Also, I was recently awarded a journalism award for an article I published last year. While this was great news, the other side of it was that I needed to go to New Orleans to accept the award. On top of this was the fact that I only had 2 weeks to prepare for this trip and that I would be gone for 6 days. I had never been away from my kids that long. Heck, I'd never been away from my husband that long. But, we all survived it and the trip was an interesting adventure- perhaps for another post. Partly because of the 5 nights in a hotel and the stress of undone projects, the homework piling up and trying to catch up at work, I haven't slept much in the last month. I'm starting to feel like I have a newborn all over again (just the lack of sleep that is). So, last night I took a couple Tylenol PMs and went to bed at a decent hour. Finally- sleep! Well, until 6am rolled around and Alex came in begging me to take him to the skateboard park- right now! You may be wondering why he was insisting on going at the crack of dawn. It has a little bit to do with the fact that Alex gets up before most birds and more to do with the fact that he was a bit traumatized by our last skateboard park adventure. Unknowingly, I brought him on a sunny afternoon last time. There were so many kids there you could hardly move. And, they were good- really good. Alex was so intimidated he couldn't hardly ride in a straight line. So, I had tried to make him feel better about it and told him that next time we'd just have to go earlier before the bigger kids even get out of bed. And so, he looked at me with those beautiful big blue eyes and I decided that in 20 years it wouldn't matter if I slept or not, but it would matter if Alex remembered that I cared enough to pick him and his skateboard over me and my sleep. But still, it was tough. That's just being honest. In the end, this was my reward.....(and yes, the park was completely empty- big surprise!)...