It was 4:00AM. The house was silent. And then the dog sat up.

He started barking, prompting Really Big Guy to go exploring. He found one kid in bed but the other was missing. At least temporarily.

Little Guy was hiding under the kitchen table fully dressed for school. He'd been trying to reach a cereal bowl on a high shelf. And the racket woke the dog who barked and then woke us, simultaneously startling him. 

Which raised a bigger question. Why did my child feel the need to be dressed and ready for breakfast three hours earlier than his usual time?

It was my fault, of course.

The day before, I had one of those moments. You know the kind. When you secretly thank goodness there are no hidden cameras in the house or tape recorders in the car. Yes, I admit some of my best yelling moments have taken place at red lights.

In this particular incident, I may have overstated, multiple times, my frustration in getting out the door in the morning. We'd been leaving for school later and later, slowly adding minutes to our departure. And as all mothers know, minutes in the morning are calculated. There's not a second to spare.

Part of my rant may have included a few choice sentences about the boys taking more responsibility. That if I woke them earlier and had them do a few of the things that I usually do, perhaps they'd understand the essential rhythm of our hustle and bustle. Perhaps they'd appreciate how precious our minutes were.

Apparently, Little Guy took this warning to heart and decided he'd better get with the program. But instead of feeling proud that my message had been heard, I felt horrible for making my kid think so much about it that he actually woke up in the dead of night to get organized.

And herein is another lesson of parenting. We've become accustomed to the few and far between glimpses we're given that confirm our kids actually listen. But it's not often we're reminded that they sometimes take what we say literally. For example:

When efforts to explain why we weren't ordering a pizza or going to a movie were met with sighs and huffs, we resorted to the worst case, dramatic scenario, telling the kids that if we didn't buckle down, we could run out of money. So, I shouldn't have been surprised when my saver Big Guy came into our room holding his piggy bank, offering his life savings to pay for anything we needed.

I once told the boys that if they fought to the point of injuring each other, they could go to jail.  Sure, a slight exaggeration - maybe even a little white lie - but when all else fails, who hasn't resorted to this? So I shouldn't have been surprised when after accidentally clocking a then three year old Little Guy in the head with a golf club, a then five year old Big Guy stood frozen in the driveway, arms extended, as he waited for the handcuffs he thought were coming since by complete coincidence, a blaring siren could be heard in the distance.

And a favorite from childhood, the time my mother told my younger sister we'd be flying to Florida. She spent days worrying that her arms couldn't possibly be strong enough to flap all the way there.

So dear children, let me clear things up for you.

When you were toddlers, I was never really going to eat your toes and steal your nose.

When you punched each other between the back seats, I was never really going to pull over and leave you on the side of the road.

When you threatened to run away because I was the absolute worst mother in the history of the entire planet, I wasn't really going to help you pack.

And now, you don't have to wake in the middle of the night to help with the morning routine.

I'll let you sleep until sunrise.