The kids have been waking up at normal time for two weeks. Now that school has started, they decide to sleep in. "I'm tired," they say. Really, your mother and I have been tired since vacation started, and now you decide to sleep in. Hmmm.

In the grand scheme of things, we really must recognize even the smallest pieces of good fortune. It's not that I was stuck babysitting my kids this morning. It isn't babysitting if they are my kids. I was watching them, for part of the time, at least. I was hanging out with them for part of the time. I was playing with them for part of the time. And that is where the wonderful piece happens. If I wouldn't have had s great morning with Julian, then I might have been really, really annoyed when he became stuck toward the top of a rock climbing wall. Of course I shouldn't be annoyed at that, but he's climbed rock walls a few times before without ant problem, but today wasn't that day. Today, he woke up before 5:30 ant grandma and papa's house. He chased the cats. He didn't really eat breakfast. We went for a cruise around Madera , which isn't very big, and finally ended up at Walmart and Starbucks all before 10:30. Now Madera is home away from home, but it's not home. It's where my wife grew up, but even she has been gone so long that many things have changed. Anyway, Julian got stuck up about two-thirds up the rock climbing wall, and without giving it a second thought, I just asked to go up and help get him down. I have Nieves been on a rock climbing wall, but it was okay. Ilittle by little he came down. He moved his hand from the blue rock to the red rock, just like I showed him. I looked into his eyes and saw fear. I saw the worst thing a parent can see when your child has to actually move his hand from the blue rock to the red rock himself. That paralyzingly fear is beyond anything we ever want to deal with. That moment when your child says," I can't do it," is alarming. Fortunately, I was able to climb the wall and help Julian down. An hour later when Maya freaked out and got stuck on the bumper boats, there was almost nothing we could do. She was on her own and so afraid that she almost jumped into the water to get away, but she didn't. Her cousin Jenna helped push her to safety. At least when we could do very little, she has someone nearby to make the seemingly impossible an actual reality..

Something that really irks me is when people hide behind false representations of open-mindedness, and later use ignorance to sway others because it is easy.

Note to self:Words

Note to Self: although chingado and motherfucker are two of my favorite words, I probably shouldn't say them around the kids too much.

When my son goes to bed, he's generally so adorable, but he wakes up a monster.

When one of my children is being annoying, the other one must honestly believe that it is her job to be even more annoying.

After my mom's third divorce when I was fourteen, she would often wake up between three and four in the morning to drink coffee and write, much like I do now. She definitely wrote letters, but I suppose she also wrote just to get he thoughts out, and it's a shame that those stacks of yellow notepads are long gone, probably ripped apart and hurried in a landfill somewhere. Maybe that is a fitting metaphor for her state of being back then. Sometimes I would wake up and sit with her, which I am sure she enjoyed; but what she really wanted was to sit alone with her thoughts in silence. Early morning is the only time we often have to be awake in quiet before the chaotic clanging of the day overtakes our senses and drowns out the small noises we forget or are unable to hear. Sometimes, like this morning, I will lay awake in bed just listening to the sounds of my dogs rustling in their sleep, the binary crunch of the cable box, and the sound of early commuters zooming down H Street toward the 805. Still, what I enjoy listening to the most is the sound of Denise's breathing while she slumbers under the warm blankets. There is no sound more beautiful than my wife drifting between states of sleep, right next to me but off in some other universe, some other plane of consciousness that she will soon return from. That is the sound of peace. That is the feeling of comfort that most people wish they had. It is just one more reminder of how luck I am.