When Daddy's Not Home

Bill left for San Francisco at 4:45 in the morning. I heard Kai whimpering outside my bedroom door at 4:52. Unwillingly I got out of bed and found him with one hand about to unlock the front door. "I want daddy..." he cried. Just when I was walking Kai back to his room, Wei started crying. Great! Today's the first day of a new session, and my alarm was set to go off in 90 minutes. Now both kids are awake and crying. My luck. Just my luck.

With Wei nursing in my arms, I sat in the reclining chair in Kai's room, putting both kids to sleep. Luckily, they both went back to sleep quite quickly. Unfortunately by then, I was wide awake.

Perhaps the interruption of sleep earlier totally tired her out, Wei didn't move when I got up at 6:30. As usual, I took the clothes I had laid out on the dresser the night before and went to the bathroom to get ready for the day. Right after I'd put my contact lenses in, a sleepy voice came in from the hallway, "It's wake up time, mommy. How come you didn't come wake me up?" It was quarter to 7, which meant this kid only slept for about an hour after he went back to bed. I swear... Neither of the kids inherited my genes when it comes to sleeping. I LOVE and am very good at sleeping. I've fallen asleep in a dance club (and not because I was drunk). I've slept through numerous earthquakes. Oh and once in Vancouver, if it weren't because of the boyfriend at the time, I might have slept through a fire in the apartment building as well. That's how much and how well I sleep. Unlike me, my children hate falling and staying asleep.

"I thought you might need to sleep more." I noticed the dark bags under his eyes. It saddens me that he has such a hard time with sleeping.

"But mommy, it's wake up time." he informed me again while rubbing his sleepy eyes.

The morning routine went without a glitch: he got dressed, had breakfast, played a little with his sister, did the toileting all by himself, brushed his teeth, got his shoes and jacket on when I asked him to, and got in the car and into his car seat.

"Mommy, I'm a big boy, right?" he said while I was driving to the school. "You certainly are. You're a very good big boy this morning." I don't want my husband to be away all the time, but Kai seems to always behave better when daddy's not home.

After school, Kai played by himself while my mom prepared dinner and I nursed Wei. Then he ate all his food and did his linguistic analysis (see previous post). After dinner, he told me he wanted to draw and spent about half an hour drawing shapes and faces at the dinner table. Then he played with his baby sister on the floor. I was so pleased and impressed with how well-behaved he was that I offered that he could play with my iPad while I showered. When I was done, instead of arguing or pleading to have more time on the iPad, he voluntarily returned the device when he was done picking up passengers on a train.

We brushed teeth, got into PJs, read a couple of books, and just like earlier this morning, with Wei in my arms, I sat on the chair waiting for both kids to fall asleep.

But of course they didn't go to sleep like I had hoped. Kai got up crying and looking for daddy, which in turn woke Wei up. Both kids were crying when they should be asleep. Deja vu! It took some stern talking-to to finally put Kai in bed, and it took a looooooong time (and 2 very sore nipples) to put the baby down.

It was almost 11pm when I had a moment to unclench my jaw and breathe.

I really should go to sleep now (12:30am). I have to get up in about 6 hours, and I have a feeling Kai's gonna be up looking for daddy in a couple of hours....

Posted with Blogsy