Living With Nocturnal Animals AKA College Kids!

My precious bundles of joy finally arrived home last night from Indiana University. It was so very nice of them to come bearing gifts for Christmas...smelly laundry. Thanks a bunch! I hate laundry! However, I love having them home so I squeeze both a little too tightly and dig into the two giant mounds before me.


(I'm about to talk about myself in the third person because that's how I'm referred to around here...Mom this or Mom that!)


Mom is so sweet. It's day one.


The load total for the day was nine (not including our laundry) and netted Mom just short of $10 which, by the way, she keeps. If you fail to empty your pockets, it's not Mom's fault. It fast becomes her coffee money. Don't even ask if there was anything in your pockets because she doesn't remember.


Not only has she finished all the laundry because we told her we're wearing our last pair of underwear, she has cooked our favorite dinner (beef tenderloin; tomato, mushroom and spinach couscous; salad and Angel bread). We haven't had a family dinner, just the four of us, in 3 1/2 months. It's really nice being home!


Mom is pooped from creating Christmas over the past few weeks and readying our home for arrival day. She hits the hay about 11pm.


This is when the nocturnal animals come out to play. They make Paninis, bake cookies, have friends over, play with the dogs, eat again, etc., etc., etc.... There is a whole nighttime world out there which begins around midnight that she doesn't know about and it's active! Rumblings and strange noises can be heard coming from the first floor. They are oddly familiar. 


Trying to recreate the blissful calm and quiet of moments before, she realizes something is far different than it was yesterday, one week ago and even one month ago. This sense is confirmed at 6:30 a.m. the next morning when the state of the family room and kitchen are revealed. 


The college kids, AKA the nocturnal animals, are home and they're here to stay for almost a month! The animals know full well that Mom's mood can change very quickly especially from lack of sleep and messes! Let's not even add bickering to the list this early in the game.


Therefore, the challenge before us is to change their internal body clocks to be more like  the animals awake during the day....Mom and Dad! The new world order begins today!