Unfortunately, there is still is a great deal of bigotry and intolerance. I hope we can all move towards a society based on love, acceptance, and understanding.

See how glancing at that chart could lead you to believe that unemployment in November is higher than the 8.8% in March despite actually being less?  Maybe this makes it more clear:

The sad thing is, software doesn’t do that automatically.  The people at Fox News had to do that on purpose.  It wasn’t an innocent mistake, it was deliberate deceit.  Perhaps this illustrates better how slimy and dishonest it was:

Credit to Media Matters.

Video by Baldy.  Photos by Baldy and Meghan.

I am an early riser.  Even when given the chance, I am rarely able to sleep past 6 AM.  There have been numerous occasions when I stay up until 3 or 4 AM working and then rise with the sun.  It’s both a curse and a blessing, but it’s certainly not a choice.  And unlike Meghan, I sleep like a log during the night.

Many years ago, we made a pact.  A dark pact forced on me by the situation at hand, our proclivities to different sleeping schedules, and her ability to feed babies without a bottle (she has breasts, I don’t think that’s a secret).  She is responsible for night-time feedings and I wake up early to handle the daily morning armageddon.

I don’t use that word lightly, either.  While Reese can be loud, she is usually a mild-mannered and relatively quiet child.  Zoe and Penny, on the other hand, could wake the dead.  Their combined screams would no doubt cause a deaf man to question his lack of hearing.  While Reese has an almost clockwork-like sleep schedule, Zoe and Penny are erratic.  I simply cannot predict which child will wake first or when they will wake up.  But here is what I can predict: chaos will ensue as soon as the first one does.  Armageddon.

Zoe and Penny both sleep with very loud white-noise machines inches from their heads.  That choice may come back to haunt us later on in life, but for now it prevents many unwelcome problems.  Unfortunately, at around 5:30 AM every morning, those sound machines stop functioning.  They still produce white-noise.  They just no longer prevent unwelcome problems.  One squeak, one sneeze, or one small sound of a door creaking open by Reese is all it takes.  Armageddon.

Zoe currently sleeps in a closet.  Literally.  There is barely enough room for her pack-n-play.   It’s also the most quiet, distant “room” in the house.  Between her and Penny, there are multiple doors and walls.  It doesn’t matter.  None of it matters.  Zoe could be in Europe and her first sound in the morning, always an unimaginably loud shriek of pure agony, would wake Penny up in California.  Armageddon.

Penny’s cries cannot yet match Zoe’s in terms of volume, but they have a piercing quality to them.  I can hear her just as clearly and loudly through a wall as through thin air.  Her screams also tug at your heart strings.  They are desperate pleas for assistance/help/attention.  In the morning, they never fail to reach Zoe’s ears.  Armageddon.

Reese is frequently the first to wake up.  Unfortunately, she would also be an absolutely terrible ninja.  She has no idea how to sneak.  Her natural gait on our wooden floor brings to mind a stampede of buffaloes.  When she opens or closes doors, she takes on herculean strength.  Armageddon.

And so every morning, when I am lucky enough to wake up before all three, I wait in silence.  On padded feet, I stalk the hall in preparation for the first sign of trouble.  Some days, I can get to the first child before she wakes the house.  Other days, I fall inches or milliseconds short.  The real problem is not having them all awake.  I love my kids and I cherish the time I have them to myself in the mornings.  The problem is that they are very demanding, not-very-patient children.  They each have their own desires in the morning.  Nobody dying of thirst in a desert has ever sounded so thirsty.  Even a robot would weep at Penny’s pathetic cries when I put her down for a minute in order to get Zoe.

Inevitably at least one of them has feces and it is never a nice, solid nugget.  No matter what size diaper or how tight it is, my kids have mastered the art of wiggling around in their sleep until that porridge-like-poop has climbed their spine and escaped the diaper’s safe embrace.  Creators of hazmat suits should study my children to find potential flaws in their designs.  I guarantee Zoe and Penny could wiggle poop out of a hazmat suit in their sleep.

Armageddon.