Woke up at 3am to the sound of crying from across the hall -- third night in a row. The first night, it was thunder. The second, a coughing fit. I didn’t know what had scared him this time, but as I sat up to get out of bed and go comfort him, I beheld a flaxen-haired vision arising from the other side of the mattress. She’d apparently returned while I slept, and I never heard her.

“I got this one,” she whispered, and I listened for Sugarbear’s surprised reaction when he realized who was coming into his room.

The crying stopped almost immediately, and I heard him say, “Mommy! You came home?”

They talked in low voices for a few minutes, but I knew there was no way he was going back to sleep in his own bed. In fact, there was probably no way he’d do anything without her for the next 48 hours.

She carried him in and set him next to me on the bed, whereupon he started bouncing on his knees, digging his elbows into my ribs, and informing me repeatedly that Mommy was home.

Having come to the conclusion that Daddy-made meals are not the best arrangement, I decided to take the boys out for dinner.

"Who wants hamburgers?" I called out from the driver's seat as we left the school parking lot.

"MEEEE!" they shrilled in unison. Now we were talking -- for the first time this week, we'd agreed on a meal. Then I made the mistake of offering options.

"Where should we go?"

"McDurgerKing!" came the discordant response. Their heads turned simultaneously for the inevitable staredown. I watched the rearview mirror in horror, anticipating the explosion.

"No! BurgDonald's!" Their eyes narrowed as I silently counted backward from five.

"DADDY! He won't let me go where I want!" was about all I could discern; then the screaming turned into something like, "Bleeeee-argle-karchem-chopfork!" as each struggled to make his voice heard above the other's.

As we approached a red light, I took a moment to breathe, then asked myself, What would Sweetie do? I could almost hear her voice inside my head: Don't just offer a compromise; trick them into thinking they came up with it.

I’d rather not talk about breakfast today.

For dinner, though, I learned a thing or two about our frozen entrees. We found some tasty frozen pasta meals that they love, but I’m all-thumbs in the kitchen. These things have their cooking instructions printed on the bottom -- several steps’ worth. The first step is to pull back the cover and microwave the box for three minutes. That was easy enough.

But I can never remember Step 2. It’s something to do with stirring certain ingredients separately -- these things have pasta, cheese sauce and occasionally something akin to meat. They are to be kept separate from one another in Steps 2 and 3. It’s easy to keep them separate when they’re frozen solid, but that’s prior to the completion of Step 1.

At the onset of Step 2, the cook is left with three partially runny lumps in the same box, with no dividers. Yet the lumps must be stirred and kept from mixing with the other lumps. This is something like putting three raw eggs in a bowl, then telling somebody to break the yoke of one and stir it up, without disturbing the other two eggs.

Further complicating matters is the fact that, as of Step 2, the cook has an open container of freshly microwaved partial liquids, with further instructions on the bottom. That’s where I ran into trouble. I was certain Step 2 had something to do with mixing, but I wasn’t sure what. So I turned the container over, to read the bottom.

Breakfast rations are dwindling, and I fear I’ll have to break out the dreaded grits by week’s end. My little cereal killer continues to ravage the pantry, despite my continued insistence that the individual servings are not a sustainable resource. To get more would entail shopping.

I can’t shop while they’re in school, because I have to work. And I can’t shop at night, because I’d rather feed them lint than take them into a grocery store by myself. I’d be outnumbered, and my zone defense is not that good. Hence, the cereal must last.

This was supposed to be Mini-Wheats Day. Part of my wife’s pre-departure counseling was: Never give either son a chance to claim that the other is receiving preferential treatment. Anything other than strict adherence to these guidelines may result in sheer chaos and a complete breakdown of familial infrastructure.

To that end, they are to be given the same thing during one sitting -- the same-sized portions of the same type of product (made by the same brand), with the same size, shape and color of auxiliary utensils. As is a servant’s tradition, I am to eat in separate quarters at a separate time.

Quite simply, one brother may not have milk in a blue cup if the other has juice in a red cup, or if Daddy has amber liquid in a clear bottle.

First full day on my own, and my sanity is no worse than it was before. We managed a grit-free breakfast, thanks to those ten remaining cereal cups. This morning, the call was for Lucky Charms, which of course means Thing 2 picked out and ate the marshmallow bits from the top of his cup before declaring he was “finish.” But I knew he wouldn’t go hungry, since his daycare provides a real breakfast; his weekday morning meal at home is more like a pre-breakfast snack.

Thing 1 doesn’t get breakfast at school, so I had to do a better job with his breakfast and make sure he ate enough to get through the morning. To that end, I told him to eat all of the marshmallow bits, not just the ones on top.

I also discovered why my wife wants the television turned off every weekday morning -- watching it is counterproductive, as “Blue’s Clues” is a distraction from eating. But I managed to wolf something down during a commercial break.