Waking up to the smell of noxious burning is never a good thing.

See, I was under the delusion that since all three kids are home from school today, I might actually get to sleep in beyond five am. When my husband and kids all leaped out of bed at quarter past five, I assumed he would wake me when he wasn't able to supervise them any longer.

Uh, no.

The three kids were in and out of our big bed, and I drifted in that half-sleep, half-awake state that has been so common over the last eight years. I was aware, but not aware.

"Mommy, there's a leg bag in the microwave." My son shook my shoulder. It didn't occur to me to question him about this "leg bag" thing.

I immediately leaped out of bed, in fire-fighter mode. As I passed by the bathroom, my husband yelled "Are you cooking something? I don't like what I'm smelling..."

I raced to the kitchen, trailing kids, to find that my nearly-four-year-old had put an ankle weight in the microwave and turned it on. For two minutes. It was black, smoking and bubbling as I wrenched the door open, to be greeted by a cloud of foulness.

I don't know what I said, exactly, but it had a lot of primal screaming for punctuation. My kids stood in a semi-circle around my quaking frame, upper torsos leaning backwards like shrubs in high winds. (I just typed quacking. I might have been doing some of that, too.)

My husband appeared, and we rapidly fanned out, opening doors and windows. The indoor-only cat took the opportunity and ran out the door, to the howls and hysterical tears of my oldest. The smoke detector never went off. I don't know if that is a good thing, or not.

Yes, at seven o'clock this morning, you could have found me in the backyard, shaking a bowl of cat kibble and calling "kitty kitty kitty kitty." At seven-o-five, you could have found me on the deck, separating my two oldest children, with one of my palms on one forehead, one of the other forehead. Every time the cat made an appearance, my daughter would grab at her, and my son would simultaneously charge, freaking the cat out and sending her scrambling under the deck.

"It is seven o'clock in the morning. The neighborhood is still asleep. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

I finally captured the cat, and locked her in the bathroom. Then I made a huge mug of coffee and turned on some Bob Marley. I've been walking around fanning the air in my house with a giant plastic lid to a giant plastic container, swaying my hips to the beat.

The kids are spending the night at Grandma's tonight. Every little thing is gonna be all right.

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