(See the first part of this rambling dreck here.)

You'd like to think I've forgotten to mention my other life-changing program, but, despite my brief drunky respite Saturday evening, I'm here to tell you all about it.

It's the urchins, plan and simple.

With the two kids, I'm a lot less likely to hang out at the dinner table and graze beyond that one helping - those kids got other things they need to do, man, things that are way more important than mom and dad finishing their dinners. The other thing I've noticed is that I'm a lot less likely to indiscriminately snack in front of them, since if they see me eating a snack, they automatically want some too - even if its great green gobs of monkey guts. Heck, especially then.

Snacks for the urchins are something of a production number, requiring plates, juices, waters, milks and an exactly equal portion of whatever foodstuff for each diner.

The kids aren't starving. I just find that I'm gradually losing weight, which, as previously discussed, isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Another interesting effect of having smaller human beings in the house is what I like to think of as the unleashing of my inner meth head.

If you're a parent. I expect and request no sympathy - you've been here. I don't guess I expect and request sympathy from anyone, really. I consciously made this bed and I lay in it willingly.

Except that I can't actually get much sleep there. The lovable ragamuffins have decided, for the last few days, that the day ahead is far too exciting to waste any precious moments, so they have started to wake bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at about a quarter-to-five each morning.

Which wouldn't be so bad but they insist that mom and dad share these precious pre-dawn moments with them. So that leaves me & my wife as perpetually sleep-starved automatons, reacting to each event we come across during the day, rather than ever being able to proact.

There is an advantage to this perpetual feeling of zombie-ness, though. I find that my ability to strongly focus on tasks, especially strongly structured and definable and accomplishable ones becomes incredible, nearly obsessive. I settle down with a bizarre tunnelvision to pick up scattered toys and building clocks and complete and organize the sets, frequently eschewing any interaction with my housemates - my family - until I'm done. I've frequently caught myself beginning to count each of the 100 blocks in their respective sets (a recent grandmotherly gift which has been a huge hit), just to make sure that each of them is accounted for and properly returned to their home.

If I could only apply this focus to my constant attempts to rule the world, you'd all be my crafty minions by all. I guess for now, though, I'll work on some sort of check-in/check-out system for the toys.