LOCKED IN!

Ok, here's the deal. Somehow I've found myself going to a lock-in at church this weekend.

Ages 4-12, y'all.

For 13 hours.

Am I scared? Pfh! Welcome to my world, I say! Welcome to my everyday/night FreAksHoW!!. EVERY NIGHT, Wyatt and I are locked in with crazy loud little people from ages 18 months to 8 years. Plus a paranoid dog who feels she must alarm us of EVERY noise she hears. Sometime during the night at least one, sometimes two, of our children weasels his or her way into the bed. And sometimes it's a child that leaks in the night. Mmmmmm...that's fun. And they never wake up happy like that. Tears and yelling ALWAYS accompany wet beds. So you have a wailing wet child in the middle of the night, a confused barking dog, and whoever else is awakened by the noise. If the leaker was in your bed, then you must get up, change the sheets and the clothes of whoever else was in the line of fire. If the leaker was in his/her own bed, you MAY be able to fake sleep and let your spouse deal with it all, but once the dog starts barking...c'mon! Get up, faker. Now one sleeps through that! Once every one is dry you can try to get back in bed and go to sleep, but then it's the dog's turn to go potty. You sure don't want to risk that mess, so you must get up AGAIN and let the dog out. Inevitably, she will decide tonight's the night for midnight stroll, so you lay on the couch and wait for her to return. Once you start to fall alseep, the dog returns. You consider letting her stay out there. Shoot, you're on the couch without any little people to kick you, 2 ceiling fans keeping you cool, why go back to bed? But then the dog starts tearing the door to shreds, (think I'm kidding? Check out our front door sometime), so you get up and let her in. Anyway, you finally do get some sleep, but forget about sleeping in the next morning. If the baby doesn't wake you first, the dog knows when the clock strikes 7:00 and feels that and all must rise by then.

So, I ask you, can a lock-in be any worse than that?

I'm gonna go WAY out on a limb and say, "No."