Typical night for me. I went to bed at 2am, still in manic flurry-writing phase. I'm living on coffee, toast and children's bits of left over food....on a prayer? Didn't get it? Too young for JBJ. Ok. Moving on. Around 4am, my husband and I woke to strange banging, clinging and random spurts of heavy breathing coming from downstairs.
The sounds got louder and were followed by a glowing light (as if from a flash light) coming up the stairs. Both of us, frozen in panic, questioning, a bit of fear. When I write "fear" it refers to the dread of someone either being sick, awake at this hour, or worse, both! "An intruder doesn't really use flashlights, that's just in cartoons right? Seems, defeatist." I said calmly. "Or its just a ghost." muttered equally as calm.
The light shone brighter as the footsteps got heavier. There may have been a split second I actually worried about either aforementioned options. In the pitch black dark, the growing light cast a pretty creepy shadow and impending doom-type scene. Before we knew it, my son, who will be three in August, walked by our bedroom door. He did this without the slightest look towards us. Almost as if to say in his head: "If I can't see you, you can't see me." That, or he thinks it perfectly natural to awake in the early hours, fetch himself some type of Apple product and nonchalantly pad his way back into his room.
At first we laughed, then I said..." We should show him how to work the toaster and the remote." It's more my problem than my husband's. He goes to Crossfit at 5:15am, then work, so my day is directly run by everyone else's disposition, but mostly just the toddler's sleep schedule. Something that would have made me bananas with either of the previous children. Now, it's out-right comical that we, as parents, laid in bed talking about an intruder, knowing full well it was one of our children. I used to jump out of bed, and be half way through the door if I heard a baby cough.With my first kid, I sat and watched her breathe all day. (and would put a finger under her nose throughout the night) I remember she would scare herself when her own hands would cross her sightline...she would jump, completely alarmed and shocked every time. Every four minutes or so. I know this, and can mimic it with exact perfection because I am NOT joking when I say I looked at her, like she (now 9) mindlessly stares at anything mine-craft or that rubbish-rambling-English guy on YouTube, playing mine craft. Yes, my child enjoys watching a bloke narrorating himself playing a game. It's a spectator-only role from her end.
The second child got a little less stare-time. She came 3.5 yrs later, and I was able to put her in an exersaucer for twenty minute increments, knowing she'd survive and might get fussy, but once ignored (baring no actual issues besides, "boredom") she realized I was cooking dinner, helping her sister do homework, and she just shrugged it off.Even in long family-road-show car rides, she would scream and cry and we'd turn up the music, then she'd just give up. Karma is a B*&th, though. Easiest baby = hardest toddler. She pushed every limit and boundary, figuratively, and literally. During a nap one day, she kicked out most of the spindles of her crib, only to climb out, and fall asleep in the rocking chair. (Escape on principle only.)
I'm sure this sounds like you should call DCFS, but hold the phone, it gets better. My son, the third child, the golden boy- is hilarious. An attention-seeking expert.
He is resourceful when it comes to elelctronics and/or food. He can line up a series of scaled pieces of furniture to climb up to the fridge, or cabinets for self-retrieval.
He has been known to hide electronics in, say....the ice maker, or under towels in the laundry room so he didn't have to share. His voice has a full range of "Fake man-deep voice" that I take as normal now. He literally says, (chin-tucked, eyes looking up) "Moooomahhhh. Immm wakkkke, noooooo-oooow"( tone-deepens with each syllable.)
He knows his limits better than an Arab gold-market booth attendant. He has been sitting in 90% of my chair, as I type this, it's now 5am, and I have just realized I'm squatting, trying to balance my tailbone on the sliver he has left for me. Just as I turn around to lose my cool he goes to the tool-box. In a different tone with his perfected sweet-baby one-two punch of innocent high voice and inflection: "Mama?" in slight whisper adding a caress of my neck, I smile, melt and turn back to type-squat.
He is the child that eats food dropped on the floor, watches more TV than any of them (mostly tween shows his older sisters watch) only gets "new" things because the pink onesies didn't go over well and if we're being truly honest, sometimes has finger nails longer than a Fredy Kruger. BUT, He laughs often, rolls with the punches, is self-reliant and brave.So, if his most intellectual sentence* is, indeed, "hi, baby, frog, wee-wee."
He will survive. He will noodle a way, and figure out how to do get ahead.
*I jest. He say way gooder sentences than that. i.e: "Me no go nigh nigh." or "I have more peeease?" (the manners, not the little green seeds)
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