It's Haaaaaard.

Because my father-in-law is still quite spry and capable of handling the daily running of our farm, my husband works off the farm for now. He is, in layman's terms, being paid to make hootch. My husband is a moonshiner. I'm so proud! It's legal moonshine, mind you, made from the finest corn and sorghum our state has to offer, and some of you probably put it in your gas tank occasionally. Thanks for that, because he's not only an employee, we're stockholders. Doesn't that sound terribly responsible of us? Investing. It's so sexy.

Currently, my husband is filling in for someone who works nights at the moonshining operation. So he has to sleep during the day. Honestly, I wish I could join him, because who doesn't love a loooong afternoon nap when it's 22 degrees outside and you can't venture out of the house for fear of falling in a ginormous pile of snow and being unable to dig one's way out. Not that this happened to me at age 4, leaving me with emotional scars and an irrational fear of snow. Not.At.All. As much as I'd like to sleep the day away, too, my primary job is to keep the house quiet enough for the husband to get adequate sleep before his next hootch-making shift. I only have one child, and one indoor cat. How hard can it be?

Let me give you a little sampling of my day.
9:02 a.m. - Husband goes to sleep.
9:30 a.m. - Child wakes up and has small tantrum because ice cream is not an appropriate breakfast food (she's not a morning gal, to which I can relate)
10:37 a.m. - Child waits until I've gone to the basement to climb atop the piano, playing it with her feet while reaching for an antique china tea set that sits on top.
10:37:05 - I run up the stairs as quietly as possible while hissing, "Nooooo! Daddy is sleeping!" Child hops off the piano with all of the grace and silence of a bull in a china shop.
11:00 a.m. - I wonder if I should even consider showering, because that would leave the child and unruly cat alone for too long. SpongeBob is a powerful attention-getter, but a whole 10 minutes without supervision may even be too much for the Great Absorbent and Porous One.
11:05 a.m. - I sneak, cat-like, to my bedroom door and slip inside, hoping that I can take the world's fastest shower. As soon as I close the door, the cat, who has suddenly learned how doors operate, begins leaping at the outer doorknob and pulling it with his feet, making a loud thwacking sound followed by a frustrated "Mrrrrrowww." He's part Siamese. Not a quiet kitty. Shower plans are canceled.
Noon - I put on a second pot of coffee, lest I doze off in the middle of my quest for silence. As I make lunch, the feline member of our household decides to investigate the meal prep, despite the fact that he has been forcibly removed from the kitchen every other time he attempted this feat. Child, knowing that feline is not allowed on the counter, leaps onto said counter, flapping her arms and hissing at the cat. Cat is alarmed, frightened by the flapping/hissing thing, and departs the counter rapidly, knocking over 3 coffee mugs and a pitcher of grape juice in the process.
1:28 p.m. - Cat finds himself trapped under a blanket and runs willy-nilly under the fabric of doom, making child laugh so hard and loud that I'm sure my husband will exit the bedroom, groggy and peeved, at any moment.
2:45 p.m. - I'm praying for 5 p.m. to arrive quickly, and don't want to start dinner for fear of setting of smoke alarms, or leaving my child unsupervised long enough that she discovers the brass band that is undoubtedly lurking in the messy basement.

Le sigh.