Grizzly Bears

As my family will verify, I am not a very pleasant person if you wake me up in the middle of the night. I tend to be closer to a large, rabid grizzly than a soft cuddly teddy bear, personality wise. Last night my oldest daughter had a friend overnight, add our Fresh Air Fund kiddo and there we 6 young girls in our house last night. I put the youngest to bed a little after 9 and headed to sleep in the amazing luxury that is a/c myself. The rest of the girls were all playing in the basement and I left them with instructions to stay quiet because the littlest one was already asleep and make sure they turned off all the lights when they went to bed.

Somewhere after midnight they awoke the bear. I am not really sure how it happened, but I do remember my oldest daughter being the brave one in the bunch and coming to tell me that the littlest one was awake. I stumbled out of bed, fumbling for pants and muttering a slew of what I am now sure were probably some very colorful phrases and emerged into the livingroom a couple of minutes later.

What I found in the livingroom was enough to raise my hackles and unleash the rabid bear's wrath. EVERY light was on, the TV was on and pretty loud for post-midnight viewing, there were things everywhere (I swear I cleaned the livingroom before I went to bed!), there were 4 girls chattering and playing like it was 2 in the afternoon, a 5 year old following me around doing her best Stewie Griffin impression (you know the one..."Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom....Mumma...Mom, Mom, Momma..." etc etc etc) and one small 2 year old holding her blanket and crying. I am not really sure what I said at that point. I would like to thing that it was something nice and calm along the lines of "girls, lets remember that it is after midnight and Justin and I have to work early tomorrow. Lets keep it quiet and turn off some of these light so Alyvia can get back to sleep, ok?" But I have a feeling that it came out more like a series of growls and gutteral grunts accompanied by some severe stomping around. Whatever it was, I do clearly remember the girls suddenly moving very rapidly to get everything turned off and head upstairs. I got the little one back into bed and dragged myself to my bed (grumbling the entire way). I fell back asleep, cranky and whiney.

This morning I woke up early to take Justin to work so that we would be able to go on our fieldtrip. I found a little 5 year old curled up in bed next to me, sound asleep. I went upstairs to let my oldest know that I was leaving and there, snuggled up in the cutest, most heartwarming, rabid grizzly melting, warm little knot of bodies, I found my oldest daughter with my youngest. I guess they are keepers after all.