it's the most what-ev-er time of the year

I don't mean Christmas. I mean a time that we have four times a year. I mean the end of the semester. And I don't mean for me. I mean for my husband.

Darin has been going to school the entire time I've known him. I think he took the summer term of '97 off because we got married then, but I don't really remember. He graduated with his bachelor's degree when li'l ~j. was 8 days old. He got his masters a few years later, and now he's working on his doctorate. It's been a lifelong goal of his to get this degree number three, and I stand by him and support it. But this end-of-the-semester thing is getting old.

Though I'm used to it now, it still turns our home upside down and shakes it a little. The chaos is due to two main things: 1, I am a spoiled, spoiled wife, and 2, Darin needs his sleep.

By spoiled wife, I mean that when Darin comes home, he is home. He cleans, cooks dinner most nights, bathes the girls every night...and most nights, he does this while I am out doing whatever I feel like I want to do gosh. I go teach a Mary Kay class or go run errands or go shopping or just go to be by myself or with friends and he gives me that space and time that grants me sanity. He does work full-time and go to school and have a time-consuming calling, but he's a dedicated father and doesn't bring his work home. Darin is not a gamer, he doesn't play on the computer. He rarely even ever watches SportsCenter, but it makes me happy when he does because it means that he's indulging in something that he enjoys - a rarity for him. But more often than not, when I get home, he's sleeping.

By Darin needing his sleep, I mean that he never stopped the mission habit of getting up at 5 for scripture study. (I tried to join him on this at the beginning of our marriage. That lasted for about a day.) Because of this, his body just...shuts down at around 8:30 or 9. He can't help it. He has fallen asleep reading aloud.

Now, because he falls asleep he doesn't easily (if ever) pull an "all-nighter" to get a paper done. That is, unless it's the end of the semester. Due to my absence in the evenings, he is doing the wifely duties and not homework. But when crunch time arrives, ie, finals week, I curb my runaway enthusiasm for the sake of Darin getting his schoolwork done. No facials, no shopping, errands with the kids. And I pull all-nighters to help ensure that the finals/papers get done.

This week has been as described above. It's not easy, but the less stressed he is, the less stressed I am, so we plow through. Last night as an example: he got home from work, but I did have a few errands that needed to be done. Logic tells us that I will finish said errands sooner if I don't have to take the time to deal with carseat buckles, so I did get to go by myself. When I got home, the girls had been fed and were sparkly clean and ready for bed. I sent Darin away to work and he hid in one of the bedrooms with his laptop and piles of paper spread all over the floor. I sent li'l ~j. to bed, and Curly followed shortly thereafter. Superstar was another story. She saw Darin when he came downstairs for a drink and cried for him to come downstairs. He decided to lay down with her on the couch, and they both fell asleep. This was at around 10. On any other night during the semester, I might just go to bed then and be done with it all. But since he's got this #@*! paper to finish, I decided to make sure that this sleeping he was doing would only be a nap. I picked a sleeping Superstar up off of her Papi's chest and put her in her crib, and then I had some vital me-time: doing laundry and catching up on shows on the DVR that I hadn't yet gotten to watch. This was until 1:45 when I tried to wake Darin. This is no easy feat, but I've done it before, like so:

me: *poke poke poke* Darin. DARIN.

D: mmm?

me: Time to wake up.

2 minutes pass.

**repeat above three times**

me: Darin. DARIN. PAPI!

D, startled as a reaction to the use of Papi: HUH??!!?

me, half-yelling, or atleast it would seem so to a sleeping person: You need to get up now and finish your paper. It is almost 2 a.m. and I am going to bed so you'd better get up now because I won't wake you up again.

Next thing I know, he's up and headed to his own personal dungeon while I go to sleep. I wake up to Darin fixing breakfast for the girls and am thankful that we only have a few more days of this craziness. That is, until April.