a long winter's nap

Today, after planning out our garden for this year and flipping through the seed catalog together, Clay and I thought we might squeeze in a quick mid-afternoon nap, to recover from the New Year's Eve festivities. This seemed like a feasible option, at the time, considering that 2 out of the 5 children were asleep, 2 more were settled happily in another bedroom playing marbles and legos, and the 8 week old was *kind of* asleep between us on the bed. We sank happily into our pillows and the eyelids began drooping...

Now, as my family well knows, one of my "pet" peeves (pun intended) is when the cat arranges herself directly in front of me, cocks a leg, and starts a thorough and vigorous bath routine. Unfortunately, the cat knows this too, and one of her chief delights is to antagonize me, the whole time pretending she is oblivious and not keeping a sly and greatly pleased eye cast in my direction. Five minutes into our intended nap time she positioned herself directly in my line of vision at the foot of the bed and began an extra noisy wash time. Persevering through several fiercely whispered "Peshe-WA!"s from me, and a couple vague kicking motions toward the direction of her head (a good 2 feet away, unfortunately), she finally subsided, with a nasty ear-flattened look, after being threatened with an upraised pencil and the evil eye. (What I was intending to do with the pencil, I'm not quite sure.) She then happily commenced snoring, as only fat, spoiled and overly-content housecats can.

One distraction down. Back to the business of peaceful snoozing.
Grunting and gasping sounds begin from the direction the baby, sparking an attack of kicks, waving arms and spasmodic wiggles, due to some mysterious digestive battle in her innards. After a few hiccups she accepted the pacifier and subsided back into sleep. Five minutes later the process began again. A few more hiccups and a belly rub from her mother calmed things back down.
Repeat ad infinitum.

Was that a waking toddler downstairs starting to stomp around? Surely not. Everything seems to be quiet again...

Somewhere in here the dog finds something fearsome to bark gruffly at outside. Ten minutes later he apparently scared whatever it was away and quieted down.

"Oh, drat" -- muttered from somewhere in the depths Clay's pillow. "I forgot to water the chickens."
And what do you know? It's time to feed the baby again, as evidenced by another increase of gruntings and vigorous kicking legs.

Oh well, we gave it a good go.