In the world of parenting, sleep could definitely be sold on the black market for a premium price. If sleep, and “me time” were sold in the grocery store, that sh*t would sell out. I’d have cans of it in the pantry, and I’d whip it out like a super power. For instance, picture me chilling on the couch watching my favorite television show while my 3 year old son plays with his toys. He would eventually get tired of playing with his toys, as he often does, and throw on his Iron Man costume (yes the one from Halloween), and run over to me yelling, “I want to watch Sponge Bob,” and I would whip out my can of “Me Time” like POW!!!! It’s “Me Time” you have to leave me alone, and be good until my show is over. However in real life that doesn’t happen. What does happen however is that every so often my 3 year old sleeps in (sleeping in is sleeping until 9 or 10), and I try to prolong that experience however long I can. I tip toe around, put the television on a super low volume that only some dogs have been trained to hear, and try to be as quiet as possible. If it’s a weekend, my daughter may be sleep to, but if not (hold on my son is currently yelling at the toilet. This is hilarious, he just said, “Stop it toilet, I am trying to flush you.” I think he pushed the lever, and it didn’t work the first time)….back to my dilemma.
If my daughter is awake, she is usually prancing about, singing, asking me 95,000 questions back to back, like some sort of dad interrogation, and making as much noise as “accidentally” possible. The key here is trying to either compromise and put on a show that she wants to watch, create some sort of art project that she can in no way complete quickly, feed her (this is only a temporary fix), or find some sort of electronical device that she can play with until ESPN goes off. Its like some kind of military mission where you have an objective, and if you fail, you will have to relinquish control of the “big tv” and your little bit of quiet time until the 3 year old wakes up. This happens every morning, and sometimes I win, and sometimes I lose. Sometimes, I’m sitting there, and I’m flipping through the channels, and facebooking on my phone, and other times, the door cracks open, and my son pops his face out smiling at me like, “Yeah sucker it’s on.” Today I lost. Sponge Bob is on the tv, my son has me making him some oatmeal, while he pretends that he is in Iron Man, and throws punches at me some of which come extremely close to the proximity of my nuts. So while the oatmeal is in the microwave, and in between him telling me he’s hungry repeatedly, I decided to type this up, and let you know how my day is starting. Tomorrow, I vow that I will be successful in squeezing out an extra hour or so in the morning for me…….I will not lose….wait, microwave stopped, I have to go.
