dog pile

I'm not sure how this happens, but my dogs have figured out how to tell time.  Every morning around 5am, they start to bark to wake me up.  Not bark, bark, bark, like someone is at the door, but one little bark, then wait 2 minutes and then another little bark.  They are telling me that it is time to get up for work.  But what they can't figure out is that there are weekends and vacation days where I don't really need to get up at 5am.  Then, we all come downstairs and I sit on the couch and watch the news, check my email and eat breakfast and they all go back to sleep.  They just want to make sure the day starts right.  They could easily come sleep on the couch by themselves, but for whatever reason, it just isn't as comfortable unless they all pile on top of each other and one of them at least has to be touching me to make it all work.  I'm not sure who is protecting who here.

This is my older son.  He just got done with his interview with the FBI for a summer internship.  He is in the middle of his 2nd year of college, but because of all of the AP (advanced placement) classes he took in high school, he only has one more year left before graduation.  He should hear back from them in a couple of weeks.  I'm proud and scared at the same time.  He wants to go into cyber terrorism-hopefully not being a cyber terrorist, but catching the bad guys and as a mother, that makes me really proud that he wants to serve our country, but I have watched a lot of TV and know that sometimes these guys are the target of shooting.  He will probably have to learn to use a gun and may have to work over seas.  He was just a little kid last week, so all of this is really not ok with me. In my mind, time stands still.