IQs and kids

Okay.

The other day I was at a friend's house and just happened to nonchalantly find a place in the conversation to slip in the fact that I have almost completed the longest series of books I've ever read. I started way back in April of this year, and here we are in December and I'm just now turning the 800 some pages of the final book of the series.

This is no small feat when you're a mother.

Typically, I will put the kids to bed, put the kids BACK to bed about 4 to 5 times depending on how many excuses I'm able to intercept BEFORE they initially go to bed, and spend the next 30 minutes or so performing housecleaning CPR on my devastated home.

After that, there are usually a couple lunches to make, calendars to be checked for the next day's itinerary (which I used to NEVER need but at this point in my life can barely remember to take my shoes off before I fall into bed, so obviously I need some written reminders), and make my way to either the couch or the bed for a few moments of peace and quiet doing whatever I feel like.

Once a week, I spend those precious few minutes watching Modern Family, which I totally love. I try mightily to ignore the comments from my husband about the bossy stay-at-home wife and mother of three, Claire, and how she for some reason sounds so familiar to him...

This is the only show I watch.

The other nights of the week, I am drawn to my bed and see my little nightstand and lamp and un-illustrated, real, grown-up book waiting for me. I open it up, enjoying the sound and smell of the printed pages rustling and settling as I find my place, and settle in for some reading solitude.

Most nights I can hardly wait to finish the next chapter so I can find out how it's going to end.

The problem is this: most nights I simply cannot keep my eyes open for much more than 2 pages or so. It doesn't matter if the main character is being suspended upside down over a cliff by the bad guy, I just cannot muster the strength to stay awake.

You mothers out there will understand. All day long you've saved little people's lives by making them give back scissors and keeping them away from moving cars in parking lots. You've translated approximately 30 totally unintelligible statements from your toddler to those she's trying to communicate with. You've rescued the dog from the "spa" where you found the kids trying to paint his toenails and pluck his eyebrows. You've listened to the Disney princess sing-a-long so many times you realize that even your internal thoughts are now starting to be voiced in that sing-song, high-pitched princess voice. You've listened and comforted your 2nd grader who stormed in declaring this to be "the worst day of her life" for one reason or another. You've broken up so many would-be fights and listened to so many tattling sessions that you've determined to just go buy a police uniform because all you do is enforce the law in your home.

I could go on, but man, I'm sleepy.

But back to my original point here. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for nearing the end of this extremely long book series when my friend said, "Oh! My son just finished reading those! He started the first one in October and just loved them."

Two problems arise here:

1. Her son read these books in two months. I'm still counting at nine months and probably have a couple weeks to go.

2. and even more disturbing, the child in question here is EIGHT years old.

Oh, okay, three problems arise:

3. Why am I reading a book an 8-yr-old boy loves and what does that say about me and my IQ?

Harry, Harry, look what you and your magic world have done to me.

Man, is anybody else sleepy?