Late Night with Chocolate Milk

My adorable,sleeping 5 year old son drooled all over the clean sheets on my bed. Not only did he wake me up with a loud thump and screaming wail, when he managed to fall out of bed at 1:30am, he pleaded to come into my bed and since my nerves were so rattled, I agreed. This little peanut then proceeded to hog my half and then his father added some loud snoring to ensure that I would not get back to any sort of restful sleep. I was driven to the couch downstairs. I knew that turning on the TV would mean I would be up for at least 2 more hours before I would finally drop of to 15 minutes of blissful sleep before my alarm went off.
When I need to use the TV as a sleeping aid, it's important to select the right show.
One that will not quite hold my attention so that I can actually drift off. The subject matter must be light but, again, in no way engaging- not too funny where I find myself listening to the jokes and absolutely no competition shows that will suck me in since I have a need to know who finally wins. Certainly nothing disturbing or jarring to add to my building middle-of-the-night anxiety. (You would be surprised at what kinds of freaky programing is on in the wee hours.) I continued to flip through the channels, squinting my dry eyes to read the digital information at the bottom of the screen. I finally settled on something mindless and burrowed down into the couch pillows when I realized that I was into it, I was actually watching... Why did I care what Paris Hilton was doing? AARGH! My fail safe, Food Network does no good either. "Cup Cake Wars" is not only a competition, it's arguably the worst show in their line up which causes me to be annoyed rather than helping me to get any shut eye. So I continued to flip, flip, flip, there are a million channels but I had trouble finding a suitable sleep aid. Finally! "St. Elmo's Fire", a truly horrible, classic movie from the 1980's featuring the "Brat Pack" that I probably saw in the theatre when it first came out. (Don't judge, I saw you there.) I've never been so thankful to see something I have probably watched a portion of a zillion times before but have never enjoyed so much to be immersed in the subject matter. Perfect. As I felt my body begin to relax and I snuggled up under the blanket, there it went, my stomach growled. Seriously? Now I have to take care of this issue? Before I flung off the blanket and got up to check the fridge, I mentally went through the inventory. What will work to take the edge off and still get me back to sleep? Liquor? Probably a bad idea. Tea? Takes too long to make, then I have to let it cool before I take a sip so I don't scorch the roof of my mouth (which I pretty much always do). Hot milk? I have no idea why this works for some people, it just leaves an icky taste in my mouth so I have to go and brush my teeth before I can settle in again and then there's that scorching problem. All right, I finally got it. Chocolate Milk. But not just any chocolate syrup will do. It must be rich and dark. Nothing imitation. (Yes, I am still a food snob in the middle of the night.) Thankfully, I made up some chocolate syrup for the kids yesterday afternoon. Yes! There was still some left; those kids would eat it by the spoonful, if I let them. I quickly mixed the sleep elixir and settled into the scene where Demi Moore's character, "Jules" hits rock bottom in her tacky, trendy totally 80's apartment complete with a monster sized likeness of Billy Idol on a hot pink wall.
Declan is no worse for the wear and has survived last night's episode. However, he claims he hurt his back. As he sings a song about it while laying on his bed tossing his stuffed dog in the air, he yells out to me, "Mom, did you know I write my own songs?: "I hurt my back, back, back, yeah!"" I'm amazed by the energy level. I've been dragging my ass around all day even though I only lost about 2 hours of sleep. I guess I'll have to use what's left of the chocolate syrup to make a mocha coffee caffeinated pick-me-up to get me through until I can put on my pajamas and go to bed.

This chocolate syrup is really runny and works best when mixed with other liquids rather than as a dessert topping.

Chocolate Syrup
3/4 water
1/2 cup sugar
5 heaping tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1/3 cup strong brewed coffee

Place water and sugar in a medium sized sauce pan. Heat on medium high until sugar dissolves. Add cocoa and coffee. Whisk to combine. Bring mixture to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook for 3-5 minutes until mixture thickens. Remove from heat and let cool. Pour into squeeze bottles and refrigerate until ready to use.

"Peepers!"

It's a sure sign of Spring when I hear the sound of the peepers in the early evening as darkness falls. Hearing them always reminds me of the time Val pulled our brown Nova 4 door to a halt with me and Jenny in the car one late April night back when I was in high school. Val cranked down her window and commanded us to do the same. We were parked next to a salt marsh somewhere in West Falmouth, I think it was near the post office. She yelled out, "Peepers!" to our horrified teenage ears. We had no idea why my totally "queer" mother was so excited about a bunch of loud noise filling the air. So, it became a joke year after year. You know the kind,when you are a teenager and you mimick your parents out of embarrassment for their lack of coolness?
These past couple of weeks I have found myself putting the windows down and driving slower to hear the song of the peepers. Even my friend Sheila gets excited about the sound that heralds warmer days and longer nights. Last year, at the end of her annual Derby party, she ran out as we were getting into the car. She wanted to know if I had heard them, too. We hugged and enjoyed the springtime moment together. I never thought about how "queer" I must now seem, getting excited about of all things, "Peepers!"