It’s no secret that we’re Sleep Sticklers and have been forever and ever. This has earned us some awe, some confusion, and some disbelief over the years, but for real: since RL entered the picture, HD has been an EARLY riser (5/6s for years now, but trained to stay in bed and not turn lights on until 6:30), which means we’ve been going strong for seven years now of early to bed because 1) our children are tired and 2) we are tired. There’s no staying up until even until 7:30 on a regular basis for any of them because Mama don’t play when it comes to the fact that they need sleep and if we let them stay up late, they are STILL going to get up EARLY (sorry for all the shouty caps and long, crazy sentences. My brain is as tired as the rest of me right now.).

Case in point? The Big 3 got to have their first sleep overs last night and now this morning we are all already in fall out mode with meltdowns and irritability.

This is, of course, entirely our own fault.

A few months ago we planned a date night in Omaha and rather than stick the grandparents with all five children for dinner and bedtime, we farmed a few of them out to very kind, very gracious, very helpful friends for their first-ever not-with-grandparents night away.

Based on the reports and pictures, everything went great. There were a few tears from a few kids, but everyone made it for the long haul, including Ben and I who drove to and from Omaha for dinner and a concert in a total of 8 hours.

And even though he’s better, Truman’s still fighting off germ bugs and it would appear Wilson is, too, so let’s just be clear that the Welschies 7 are on the Struggle Bus today.

But the children in particualr? They are a whole new level of exhausted and we’re only halfway to bedtime at this point. I know no one expects a lot of sleep from a sleep over, and we have zero qualms with what transpired for them last night (seriously: if you housed one of my babies last night, I give you nothing but the utmost praise and thanks!!!). But you give my oldest an inch and apparently he’ll take a good four hours to go to bed and STILL get up at 5:45 the next day.  This means the rest of the day is going to be a true test for all of us. Tomorrow will be much the same. Because as anyone with an Early Riser will tell you, it doesn’t matter how late you let them go; their bodies are still going to get up at the (bum) crack of dawn. So now have to try to keep our eyelids and our attitudes skyward, because, parenting. And adulting. They just don’t stop for the tireds or birthdays (HBD, Husband! I love you always, even when exhausted.)

At least we still have a tiny sense of humor this morning (check with me by 5:00 today. It might be dead by then) and managed to document our “tired faces” for the camera, including eye masks for me because my bag and circles have bags and circles at the moment:

Coffee, anyone?