Loving being dad
Jan. 11th, 2005 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonSo it's one of my daily dadly duties to get my 5-year-old son up and off to the school bus every morning. That means waking both of us up at 7am sharp, which, for a religiously devoted night owl like myself, is simply brutal, particularly if I've been up most of the night writing, or more likely, avoiding writing. Oh, well, caffeine fills in the cracks and gaps where sleep should have gone, like luciously addictive amphetamine-laced brain-spackle. My son, though, doesn't have the benefit of a caffeinated crutch, and it is a very enlightening window into my own soul to watch him struggle with That Most Dreadful Hour (the one after you first awake, assuming it is any time before the sun is high in the sky). Oi. His piteous cries are heartwrenching, and I blearily and with enormous fatherly sympathy pull him out of bed by his feet and lovingly toss him in the general direction of his clothes, sometimes repeatedly, as his doggedly snoozeophilic reptile hindbrain instinctively autoambulates him back into bed and darkness. At this time I must make my sincere apologies to all of my family, friends and loved ones over the years who have ever had to try to motivate me out of bed in the morning.
My son and I have our daily routines, which helps avoid the need for engaging a brain any time before noon. My delightful, but bizarrely, unnaturally perky-in-the-early-morning partner lays out our son's breakfast and clothes before she leaves the house at some ungodly hour where the sun don't shine, so neither my son nor I have to think about anything right off, thank the gods. This is all for the best - I find myself reminding *both* of us most mornings, "no, no, first socks, *then* shoes..." Then I prop him up at the table and start up the kettle for coffee or tea, if a Lovely Housemate has not already done so before heading to work. If Mr. Pokeymeals then finishes his breakfast without excessive delays or falling asleep at his seat, we have a little time to do something together before bundling up and treking up the quarter-mile to the end of our driveway.
And this morning, he either wanted to play Twister (which I wisely nixed, but that's my boy), or Snakes and Ladders, which is what we did. He picked the blue pieces, explaining that "blue was for water, and he felt very dreamy" (no big surprise, he was still at that point mere minutes from sleep if I let him slump over a bit). For me, he allocated the red pieces, because "red is for fire," and I apparently looked like I needed a little. No kidding. We only got a little way into the game before having to stop and go through the Bundling Ritual to gird our loins for the trek through the wilderness. Up at the road while waiting for the bus, I had to explain several times that throwing snowballs at daddy while daddy was finishing his mug of Earl Grey tea, particuarly if that caused lumps of cold snow to fall into the mug and make his nice warm addiction tepid, was a Very Bad Idea Indeed. This of course did no good at all, and I was forced to wearily place said now-tepid mug into a handy snowdrift, which, as it turns out, also had room to hold #1 son. Problem solved, at least for a few more weeks until he's bigger than I am and weighs too much to lift...whereupon I discovered that my earnest attempt at Providing Educational Discipline had merely placed my son in the midst of an abundant supply of Ammunition for Trouble, and the snowball fight resumed in earnest. Ah, how this parenting process enlightens us both. Hmmph.
Okay, it's times like this when I know that if I never do a single other good or useful thing in this world during my life, having and raising this kid is enough.
And lest this slice of life end on such a sentimental note, I just now had to run out to the dining room to clean up the broken glass after housemate's reform-school-girl polydactyl cat ("New And Improved! Cats With Opposable Thumbs!) shattered one of the glasses in which we were sprouting garlic bulbs, apparently because she liked drinking the garlic water from the bottom. I love cats.
My son and I have our daily routines, which helps avoid the need for engaging a brain any time before noon. My delightful, but bizarrely, unnaturally perky-in-the-early-morning partner lays out our son's breakfast and clothes before she leaves the house at some ungodly hour where the sun don't shine, so neither my son nor I have to think about anything right off, thank the gods. This is all for the best - I find myself reminding *both* of us most mornings, "no, no, first socks, *then* shoes..." Then I prop him up at the table and start up the kettle for coffee or tea, if a Lovely Housemate has not already done so before heading to work. If Mr. Pokeymeals then finishes his breakfast without excessive delays or falling asleep at his seat, we have a little time to do something together before bundling up and treking up the quarter-mile to the end of our driveway.
And this morning, he either wanted to play Twister (which I wisely nixed, but that's my boy), or Snakes and Ladders, which is what we did. He picked the blue pieces, explaining that "blue was for water, and he felt very dreamy" (no big surprise, he was still at that point mere minutes from sleep if I let him slump over a bit). For me, he allocated the red pieces, because "red is for fire," and I apparently looked like I needed a little. No kidding. We only got a little way into the game before having to stop and go through the Bundling Ritual to gird our loins for the trek through the wilderness. Up at the road while waiting for the bus, I had to explain several times that throwing snowballs at daddy while daddy was finishing his mug of Earl Grey tea, particuarly if that caused lumps of cold snow to fall into the mug and make his nice warm addiction tepid, was a Very Bad Idea Indeed. This of course did no good at all, and I was forced to wearily place said now-tepid mug into a handy snowdrift, which, as it turns out, also had room to hold #1 son. Problem solved, at least for a few more weeks until he's bigger than I am and weighs too much to lift...whereupon I discovered that my earnest attempt at Providing Educational Discipline had merely placed my son in the midst of an abundant supply of Ammunition for Trouble, and the snowball fight resumed in earnest. Ah, how this parenting process enlightens us both. Hmmph.
Okay, it's times like this when I know that if I never do a single other good or useful thing in this world during my life, having and raising this kid is enough.
And lest this slice of life end on such a sentimental note, I just now had to run out to the dining room to clean up the broken glass after housemate's reform-school-girl polydactyl cat ("New And Improved! Cats With Opposable Thumbs!) shattered one of the glasses in which we were sprouting garlic bulbs, apparently because she liked drinking the garlic water from the bottom. I love cats.
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Date: 2005-01-11 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:25 am (UTC)Yours in expository excess,
--*C