Morning usually comes in waves at the TLMB house. The Baby will spit up/have a leaky diaper that wakes him up, a cat will get hungry, Louise, our dog, will scratch her neck to jangle the tags on her collar to let us know she needs to pee, and we’ll all gradually make it from horizontal to semi-vertical.

This morning at around 5:20, it was a noisy cat who stirred me from sleep. I went to feed him and shut him in the basement to avoid waking The Baby. Our dog followed me out of the bedroom and stood at the door to be let out.

The sun isn’t coming up until 7 a.m. these days, and usually The Husband is on morning dog duty. And usually, because Louise is afraid of the dark, he turns on a porch light that always makes me grumble from bed because I worry it will wake up The Baby. So I decided to leave the porch light off and assumed Louise would tentatively amble a few steps off the porch and pee before hurrying back to the safety of the house, as she usually does.

(We discovered her fear of the dark last summer when we took her camping and she tried to scratch her way into the tent after night fell. This girl does NOT like not being able to see.)

Instead, I heard a small ruckus that sounded like a snort on the far side of our garden, about 20 yards from the house. And then I smelled a stink. Oh, God, a stink.

Because our bedroom windows were open and the porch lets off just near it, I was whisper-hissing her name and quietly clapping to try to find her without waking up The Baby. I went back in, found my boots, and wandered over to find her rolling around in the grass. This cat-loving doofus had gotten eyes deep in the business end of a skunk.

I sighed, resigned to  my fate of never, ever, ever sleeping in again and went to gather old towels and supplies. (A quick Google led me to the de-skunking solution that worked pretty well: hydrogen peroxide, baking soday and dish soap. Thanks, Mythbusters.) If a fluffy cat-like thing makes our dog forget her fear of the dark, a cold hose bath will remind her in full force that she hates the dark (and also baths.)

Four baths later (one of which was mine) and the household is wide, wide awake with only one more full hour until the sun comes up.

Happy weekend, everybody.

P.S. This week marks my descent back into coffee addiction after two years off the stuff. I have mixed feelings about this.

P.P.S. The Husband just walked by and sniffed me and gave me a 2/10 for skunk smell. Shit.