Burning the Candle at Both Ends

My oldest has been really burning the candle at both ends the last couple of weeks.  He is taking a morning class at Collin College in order to fill in some credits he did not need until he changed majors, plus he is working pretty much non-stop.  He has three major projects at work with deadlines that are pretty much past now. 

He leaves for class at 7:30 A.M. and after a two hour 8:00 A.M. class he goes to the train station and takes the train to downtown Dallas to work.  He gets home sometime between 7:30 and 8:00 P.M.  After he eats dinner, he works until 1 or 2:00 A.M.

Now I admit that when he complains about how much work he has I am not that supportive simply because he needs to learn what it is like in the real world.  When he complains about not being able to get everything done, I remind him how his dad would sleep on the floor of his cubicle, or in his car in the parking lot when he had big deadlines.  Not that I want my oldest sleeping in his car in a parking lot in downtown Dallas, but I do want him to know that in the real world, in his chosen profession, there are times when the hours are very long. However, as a mom I worry about him.

This has been a particularly hard week for him to get started since he worked all weekend until the wee hours of the morning and then would get up early and start all over again.  On Tuesday I woke up to realize it was 7:25A.M. and his bedroom door was still shut.  I opened the door and told him he was going to be late. He jumped up and was out the door by 7:40.  

This morning I woke up at 7:00 A.M. and realized I did not hear any sounds in the house.  I wasn't ready to get up yet, so I picked up my cell phone and called him.  The conversation went like this:

Ring, ring:  

Him: Mruruph

Me: Are you still in bed?

Him:  Mrrummm mmmmrrrrrrr

Me:  You need to get up because I am going back to sleep, this is the only wake up you get.

Him:  Rrrrrrrrrrrmmmrrrrmmrmmmr

Me:  Do you understand?

Him:  Mrmph

I hung up the phone and then I listened for a few minutes.  I heard his door open, and then I went back to sleep. 

I warned him tonight that I might not wake up early tomorrow, so he better get up to his alarm. I hope he gets to have a weekend off before he is back in school full time.