Even the dog is exhausted. Ever loyal and fiercely afraid of missing a snack, he has stayed awake with me this week. He stretches out on the rug next to me and watches me pack orders. If I get up to grab more envelopes or cards, he straightens up and squares his shoulders like a sphynx, ready. And if I happen to take a step bedroomward he runs off down the hallway because wooo finally bed yay! From the living room I can hear the soft crinkle of a dog making a rounded little nest out of our comforter and I hear him sigh that dog sigh that means he is settled. Then a few minutes later he clicks back into the living room where he flops down somewhere and watches me, waiting for the next psyche-out.

I don’t know why he doesn’t just go to bed except that, like I said, he might miss 2a.m. hot dog hour, or the possible late-night human tradition of cooking liver snacks wrapped in bacon and coated in peanut butter, which we of course don’t eat. We throw it on the floor because that’s nasty. No dog has ever seen this actually happen but there’s always the what if. Who would want to be the idiot dog who missed that by going to bed 15 minutes too soon?

So yeah, he’s wiped out. As the boys and I move around through the apartment all day, he trots to whatever room we’re all in and sleeps so hard that he snores.

Which sometimes gives me a great idea, and I distract the boys with some choking hazards mixed with magnets and string and plastic bags long enough for me to grab a short nap.

But don’t think I’m complaining about the tiredness! No no no. I am just documenting it. It’s a good kind of tired. I feel like… what’s the word for when an ice skater pulls her arms in and starts to spin faster into a tornadic blur and it’s awesome? We are that kind of busy and it’s that kind of exciting, and the dog and I are that kind of exhausted.