The demon sleeps.

The demon sleeps.

The demon, in this case, is occupying the shell of my formerly sweet and reserved three-year-old. He looks peaceful enough with those eyes closed tightly and his shallow breath whistling in the air. Be not deceived my friend. Be not deceived.

If it’s not a case of “making it snow” by way of spreading twenty pounds of flour across the kitchen and dining room floor, it’s mixing Powerade and Bisquick into a goopy mess on the carpet. Oh and then there was the thousand piece puzzle that just happened to explode all over the carpet. Do you happen to understand how difficult it is to pick up tiny puzzle pieces off of Berber? This child needs to be on twenty-four hour watch. And I? I just don’t have the energy for that. A woman needs to sleep!

It isn’t that I don’t love to clean up ridiculously unnecessary messes at any given minute of the day, but, well, I don’t actually. I loathe that idea entirely. I’m not a huge fan of cleaning constantly throughout the day, though I realize, now more than ever, that it is a much more effective way of avoiding the treacherous end of the day mass overhaul of accumulated junk.

He does these things. These things that annoy the hell out me. Things that require me to drop everything in that very moment and tend to them. And then, do you want to know what he does? He apologizes, wraps those tiny little arms around my neck and says, “I wuv you, mommy.” That is why I put up with it all. Because he doesn’t mean to drive me crazy, he’s just so damn good at it.

In short, mama needs a break. Hard.