I cooked waffles.

That was my big achievement this morning: I put butter on the frozen waffles and stuck them in the toaster. Well, and I drove myself to work, but somehow that doesn't feel like much of an accomplishment.

It's been a long week. My sinuses have been completely nuts -- maybe just allergies, but I suspect a head cold of some sort -- and I've taken to coughing when I should be sleeping -- just as a hobby, mind you -- and I've been trying to keep All The Things going -- you know, getting the boys to school, getting the boys back from school, making sure they have lunches at school... Oh. And making breakfast. Because, you know, breakfast. All this, while the most horrible things imaginable are draining out of my sinuses and down the back of my throat, and in the process making me sound like something that's been freshly resurrected and isn't all that happy about it.

So this morning, I rolled over from where I'd been sleeping on the couch -- all part of the plan to keep my head propped up so the blasphemous, otherworldly things in my sinuses would continue to drain down the back of my throat and perish in the holy fires of my stomach acid, rather than piling up in that one little place just above the corner of my right eye, and pressing together in an unholy ritual that will summon the dreaded Sinus Infection -- where was I, again?

Oh, right. On the couch. "Sleeping." (I use the term in its loosest possible sense, the one that's actually a synonym for "coughing", with a strong connotation of "wishing helplessly for the sweet release of death".)

My alarm clock went off. (It does that.) I had no energy to move. It was all I could do to flail one arm up to the shelf, and drag the thing down onto the couch with me by its snooze button. It went off again. I snoozed it again. (My hand was still around it, so this wasn't so much an "action" as a "twitch".) It went off again. I snoozed it again. (Ditto.) It went off again. This time I raised my voice in a pathetic, mewling cry, and then snoozed it again.

Finally, I heaved myself off the couch and staggered to the kitchen. I needed to make up for lost time, which meant I needed to make breakfast for the boys. I opened the freezer, reached for the frozen waffles, and grabbed the chicken nuggets instead. (This is known as "not being at your best".) I briefly considered buttering the chicken nuggets, but a momentary vision of the toaster oven burning dissuaded me. I put the nuggets back, and this time I managed to get the frozen waffles. And the butter. And a knife. (The knife might have been a bad idea.)

Carefully, I sliced the butter and laid it out on the frozen waffles. I have no idea how long this took. The meticulous precision of the process required my utmost concentration. Then I put them in the toaster oven and set it for five minutes. I noted with pleasure that the little red light actually came on, which meant that nobody had unplugged the toaster to make popcorn the night before. (It only took three times of letting the toaster tick all the way down to its final ding! before discovering that the waffles inside were still completely frozen to make checking that stupid little light a bone-deep reflex.)

Then I staggered into the back room, climbed up to the loft bed, and slumped down in a sort of whole-body avalanche beside my wife. "There are waffles in the toaster oven," I said. My voice may have been slightly muffled by the pillow. (My breathing may have been slightly muffled by the pillow. Eh, who needs oxygen?)

That was all I had left. Beautiful Wife had to get the boys up, give them the waffles, and make their lunches. She even took them both to school. (Probably a good thing. In my current state, I might have driven all the way to work with Firstborn still in the back seat.) I did eventually pry myself back out of bed and make it to work, but I am tired. Exhausted. Drained.

But I did cook the waffles.