Misc and Other Blog: But I'm Not Sleepy

I started a second blog a while back called "Miscellaneous and Other".  I did about four postings on it before I decided that I didn't feel like investing time in two completely different blogs.  Here is one of my favorites posts from that blog:

But I'm Not Sleepy

There is no such thing as sleeping late when you have a child. For those of you without children, you have no idea what it’s like to wake up to the sound of the toilet flushing at 6 am, bathroom light shining in your face. And the first thing you think when your five year old son climbs into bed with you is NOT how much you love them. The first thing you think is “Did he wash his hands?”. That’s because the hand in question is currently caressing your face and you know that you did not hear any sink water running after the flush. So you ask, “Is that the pee-pee hand?” “No”, your angel answers. “Are you sure?” “No”. You have just been awakened by the joy of your life. Now those of you with pets might think you go through the same thing with your “babies”. But I beg to differ. You can tell your animal to go away, and it might look at you as though it does not understand. If you tell your child to go away, your child will usually look at you and say, “But, I’m not sleepy.” Once your child utters these magical words to you, your sleeping time is over.

This is my morning: I set my alarm to go off at 7am. This means that I really want to get up at about 7:15 or 7:22. My son usually wakes up around 6 am and goes to the bathroom. I know that he is in the bathroom because I hear the toilet seat as he slams it while raising it up. I am also aware of the fact that he did not close the door while going to the bathroom because the light is shining in my face. I hear the sound of him “doing his business” and an alarming thought comes rushing to my sleepy, half-awake brain. “ Dear God, please don’t let him miss,”. After he is done, I hear the slam of the toilet seat as he lets it clank back down. At this point, there is a fifty-fifty chance that he is going to wash his hands. I listen to hear the sound of running water. If he does not wash his hands, then you have to go through the aforementioned pee-pee hand interrogation. If he does wash his hands, then you will probably get the wet fingers of affection. That’s because he probably didn’t dry his hands completely after washing them. Either way, you are going to get something because he is going to climb into bed with you. Now my son takes after me. What that means is that it is impossible(and I do mean no chance in the free world), for him to get comfortable while lying down for at least the first 10 minutes. Remember that it is still only 6:04 in the morning. So he climbs in and begins his quest of manafest destiny by scooting me over with his butt. “Hey you,” I say, “Why don’t you go get in your own bed?”. Sometimes he protests. Sometimes he does not. This time he does not. So he goes out of the room leaving the door to my bedroom wide open.

I don’t know what it is about the door being open, but when I am serious about sleeping, I want it closed. So I ask as politely as I can, “Close the door!”. Please don’t judge me. I’m sleepy. So he comes back and shuts the door. Fifteen or twenty minutes later he comes back in and climbs in on my wife’s side of the bed. He does that because he figures that she won’t send him back out like the evil man that she married just did. But my wife is wanting to sleep until the sun actually rises as well so she gently kisses him on the cheek and sends him back to bed also. The time is now 6:35am. Ten minutes later he comes back in and says, “Daddy? I’m hungry,”. My wife replys that breakfast will not be served until 8am. My son answers, “But I’m hungry now.”. At this point your parental mind tells you that you should not have taught your child to fight for what he believes in. So my wife and I begin the ritual of determining who has done the most work for the sake of the family in the last twenty-four hours. The loser has to get up and make our son breakfast. The winner gets another ten minutes of sleep. Dang it! Lost again.