It’s that valuable golden time right now.  The twenty minutes before my two girls wake up and we continue the battle, like ancient times when armies never engaged in conflict between sundown and sun up.  But they will be up. They’ll be up wanting to dress themselves like circus clowns and go against every ascetic I hold dear. They will want to “help” with breakfast but clean up the carnage.  The four-year-old will grunt like a primordial ape, a sound far more unpleasant than a thousand Jersey housewife’s simultaneously ordering a mocha Frappaccino. Isn’t it funny that 99% of people reading this will know actually what a Frappuccino is? Oh no, it’s stared to rain again.  My entertainment options just shrank to all the things I don’t know how to do, refuse to do or my wife will let me do. I’m staring to panic and I haven’t had coffee yet. I actually google, “things to do with kids on a rainy Saturday in New York City”.  All the search results come back with things that cost over $100 or the Natural History Museum.  I try to visualize what the museum would be like but I can only picture myself being stoned without the kids.  That clearly won’t work.  I want to go down the street to Tent and Trails,  buy a bunch of camping gear and set it up in the apartment.  Maybe I can turn the whole place into a Everest base camp, turn the AC way down and cook their breakfast over an open fire. No, that goes under, “things my wife won’t let me do”.  I google, “Eye exercises for strengthening focusing muscles”as a diversion.  Lately I’ve been feeling and can do something about my failing vision and I hate relying on my glasses at night when trying to figure out what kind of margarita to order.  I’m now doing figure eights with my eyes and focusing near and far on a pen held in my out-stretched arm.  Oh no! I just heard one of them coughing. This is a new complication to an already problematic situation.  Any wheat bearing menu items are now persona non grata according to my wife’s holistic guidelines. The pancake promise I made last night is clearly off the table.  I feel the mounting pressure and I’m a little dizzy from the eye exercises.  I put my glasses back on, tighten my faded robe like a layer of armor.  It’s sunrise and they stand at the ready. I’m going in.