Oh, it went just fine, of course. No 11 pm come-get-me phone call, no 5 am come-get-your-kid-he’s-making-us-mental call, and I got to sleep in until 8:30. I’ll tell you, there is not much sadder than realizing that 8:30 now qualifies as “sleeping in”.

The only drawback to the sleepover, according to Sport, was this shocker: “Mom. Did you know that some people don’t eat breakfast on Saturday until EIGHT O’CLOCK?? That is way too late. I have been up for hours by then.”

Thankfully, he did not wake everyone up at 5 am, which I was a bit afraid of. Although he had been told it was fine to get up and play or read, apparently he just stayed in bed until his friend woke up too. Now if I could just get him to do that at home…

So, sleeping away from home without Mom, check. Since sometime in the next two years I may have to leave him for a week to go and get Little Brother, my intention is to work on some gradually lengthening trial runs, and this was a start. (I say “may” have to leave him because it is possible Sport might come too. It’ll depend on when it happens, how he feels about going back to Ethiopia for a visit, and whether or not I have another adult to travel with me. I’m not too sure how Sport will react when re-immersed in the sights, smells, and sounds of his old home. Handling the transition for a new child along with a possible total meltdown on the other child’s part might be a bit much for me if I was flying solo.)

I dropped Sport off at a friend’s house tonight for his first sleepover. Sure, he’s slept over at other people’s houses or cabins before, but I’ve always been there. This will be the first time since the day we met that I won’t be there overnight.

I hadn’t really thought about how I would feel about this, being more concerned with how Sport would handle it. Turns out that “mildly nauseous” is the best descriptor of my current state. Sport, on the other hand, seemed fine. This is a family who was in our travel group to Ethiopia after all, and they are practically a second family for him. I think it will be fine, but I won’t be totally shocked if I get an 11 pm “come get me” phone call.

“Morals” and “values” are not precisely the same thing. Please do not substitute words when you quote me, especially when I know I was on tape. It makes me sound like even more of a doofus, and frankly, I don’t need help with that.

Guess what we had for supper tonight? Here are some of the key ingredients:

Missing from photo: entire bag of onions, three saucepans, and the shambles that is my stove. Cooking with all that oil and berbere does make a mess.

A few blocks away from our house, there is a house with a giant flagpole in the yard. The flags that are flown on it seem to change at random. Sometimes it’s the Canadian flag, sometimes the provincial flag, sometimes the Royal Standard of Scotland, sometimes it’s the football club logo, and for a while it was a skull and crossbones. (No, it wasn’t Halloween.)

This morning I drove by and did a double take. Dude is now flying the Confederate flag.

Uh… I’m not sure what to make of this. Is he a Dukes of Hazzard fan? A Son of the Daughters of the Confederacy? A member of the Aryan Nation? Or just a completely clueless Canadian, who has no idea of the connotations of that flag? I’m not sure, but I’m keeping a closer eye on that flagpole now.

No, I’m not talking about the lack of sleep this time. Actually this morning wasn’t bad, Sport didn’t wake up until almost 6 am. Miraculous! But between then and when I got up, he was working on a project. And when I finally stumbled downstairs, he announced, “Guess what! I am writing a book. A book about how to solve problems.” Well, excellent. I would like to read such a book. “It’s not done yet. It will be long when it’s done, but it’s not done.” Ok then.

While he was having breakfast I took some clean laundry into his room and sure enough, there was page 1 on his desk, titled “How to Solv Probolems”.

The first problem he is choosing to tackle?

“What to do when you wear your favorit shirt to school and then your frend says it dosnt match your pants.”

Seriously, this kid kills me.

I had an email exchange last week with another single woman who is considering adoption. She had some questions about the process, choosing a program, and the whole single-parent gig. Her last question was, “What’s been the one hardest thing for you?”

Exhaustion. Hands down. I live in a chronic state of exhaustion, and two years later, I’m still not used to it. My constant answer to the question, “How are you?” is “Tired.” And of course everyone has helpful suggestions, like “Maybe you should go to bed earlier.” Yeah, maybe I should. But it’s not going to happen. Here’s why: Sport is usually asleep by 8:30. Two to two-and-a-half hours later, I need to wake him up to get him to go to the bathroom in order to prevent bedwetting. (Doesn’t work if it’s earlier, doesn’t work if it’s later.) So I have to stay up til at least 10:30, and am almost always in bed by 11. (On occasion I mutiny, and go to bed at 9. And then get woken up at 1 when Sport wakes up in a wet bed. So, not really worth it then.)

11:00  isn’t that late, really, but bear in mind Sport is up in the morning around 5. He’s doing well at following the order not to wake me up until 6:30 unless it’s an emergency, but I usually wake up anyway because once he’s up, then the dog is up, and there is tappity-tapping of claws and running of water in the bathroom, etc. Add to this the three or four times a week that Sport wakes up with a nightmare around the 1 am mark – and sometimes again at the 3 am mark – and you begin to see the problem. We’re talking about 5-6  hours of interrupted sleep, max. And as it turns out, I’m not 22 anymore, and I need more than that. (God, remember those days when you could stay up until 3 and still make your 8:30 class and do it all again the next night? I swear, the only time I think it’s better to have kids when you are younger is when I remember how little sleep I needed then.) And of course, it’s not like I can sleep in on weekends anymore. I do occasionally go back to bed after getting Sport’s breakfast, but it’s just not the same.

After Sport had been home about 6 months, I was whining about the lack-of-sleep issue to another mother. She assured me that you just get used to it and you function on less sleep. I’m here to tell you, that is a BIG FAT LIE. I mean, I guess you function on less in the sense that I am still mostly functional. But you do NOT get used to it, or at least I haven’t. At 6:30 tonight I finished cleaning up the kitchen from supper and I was ready to just go to bed right then. As the Brits would say, I was knackered. I did  contemplate having a nap from 6:30 to 8:00… but then I probably just wouldn’t be able to fall asleep later and I’d be awake til midnight, thereby gaining no ground. Plus of course there were still 3 loads of laundry to do. So heigh ho, it’s 9:30, and despite the fact that I can barely keep my eyes open, I’ve got another hour to go until I can escort the zombie child to the bathroom. (Seriously, he does not really wake up for those trips. I have on occasion found myself yelling, “SPORT! That’s the BATHTUB not the toilet!” and other highly improbable things.) And then the best case scenario is not waking up until my alarm goes off at 6:30. Bleh.

… until Christmas.

Wow, I heard your shriek from here. Believe me, when someone told me earlier in the week it was 45 days until Christmas I was all OH IT IS NOT and then … huh. Yeah, I guess it is. How did that happen?

The good news is, as of today I am done my Christmas shopping. And without ever stepping foot in a mall. Mind you, I’ve had Sport’s presents for a while now – one of the advantages of having a single-minded child who sticks to it once he decides on something. Quite a few things for other people have been accumulating for months too – if I see the perfect gift for someone I just buy it on the spot, whether it’s April or December. This year my immediate family agreed to just do gifts for the kids, so that simplified things quite a bit too.

So as long as my order from bookcloseouts.com arrives safely, no more shopping for me. (They have a free shipping offer from now until the end of December. I was supposed to pass that up?)

Oh, there is one thing left to buy now that I think of it – an advent calendar for Sport. Today we were in a toy store and he saw a Lego advent calendar. I’ve never seen such a thing before, but there it was – promising a Lego toy behind each door. Sport, who is always allowed to pick out his advent calendar at the grocery store,  looked at in awe and announced, “Ok, this year I would like to have a Lego calendar instead of a chocolate one!”  I looked at the price and pointed out that it cost $35. “Whoa. That is a lot of money. I guess not.” You guess right, buddy.

And also lazy. Notice how I have been posting every day in November? In other words, participating in NaBloPoMo without actually saying so? But now I have admitted it, which means the posting will probably crash and burn pretty soon.

And I’m really really tired tonight, so in lieu of an actual post, here’s a picture to help you with your mental image of the off topic sidebar at the end of this post. Don’t say I never did anything for you.

Sunrise begins to illuminate the hills along the Orange River. You’re looking at the Namibian side. (Yes, I’m sure. But don’t ask me what time it was.)

Naturally, the night when I am most pissed off with Sport’s  Scout leader, and underwhelmed by the program in general, is the night when a reporter appears and one of the leaders asks if I would agree to be interviewed.

No, I didn’t sabotage them. I made nice and talked about why I signed him up in the first place, not why I won’t be signing him up again next year.