Liar, liar, pants on fire

"Mommy, are you awake?"

This question was posed by the completely alert and intently-staring-at-me-from-under-my-covers-where-she-snuggled-late-last-night five-year old daughter.

At approximately 5:12 a.m. On a Sunday morning. It was pitch dark and obscenely early. And considering that a congested and coughing Dash had kept me up until after 1:00 a.m, no way was I getting up a this hour for anything less than a fire or a medical emergency. And even those were becoming negotiable.

"No. Definitely not."

My eyes closed. I sank immediately back into beckoning slumber. For about 28 seconds.

"Mommy, are you sure you're not awake?" I was silently willing her sweet, pleading voice to not penetrate my sleep cocoon. My eyelids were lined with anvils and didn't even attempt to open as I issued my repeated answer in my barely audible, groggy whisper, "LaLa, I am sure. Go back to sleep, honey."

And we again descended back into silence. Well, one of us did.

"Mommy, you're talking. People who are asleep don't talk. How can you talk if you're asleep?"

"That's a good question. Let's sleep on that one, OK?"

That bought me twenty minutes.

At 5:30, she had decided that no amount of rumination could convince her that people who are asleep can talk. She leaned over and started stroking my hair and then my face, trying to rouse me. Her sweet gesture ordinarily would have been rewarded with a hug or kiss from me - but anything that threatened intrusion on the already endangered species of my SLEEP was regrettably unwelcome, no matter how adorabale.

Abandoning this effort, she leaned close. "Mommy, I know you are awake because you're talking to me. You LIED, Mommy. You said you were not awake and you ARE awake."

She sat upright in my bed with her tiny little arms crossed. Albeit with a hesitancy I can not adequately describe, I was unavoidably awake now. I rolled over and faced her. She was formidable. "You LIED, Mommy. You know the difference between the truth and a lie."

And as she shook her head in sober consternation, she delivered the one that finally motivated me to drag myself out of bed and make breakfast for this future litigator, "I am so disappointed in you, Mommy. We need to pray."

Which brings me to the reason I was kneeling beside my bed with my 5-year old daughter at half past five, praying for forgiveness for misleading my poor daughter in my ill-fated attempt to cling to the last vestiges of sleep. And wondering how this situation had gotten so ridiculous. While newly appreciating the scarily effective skill of overt manipulation possesed by my daughter. Especially in the wee hours of the morning when my mind has not yet punched its timecard for the day.

Tonight, Copper and I are debating the merits of installing a lock on our bedroom door.