Bang woke at 5:30 in the morning.
0530. O’Dark 30. Butt crack of dawn. Actually, it was an hour before the dawn cracked.
Too frickin’ early if you ask me.
So I laid with him. He was content to lay and snuggle and hug my arm and pretend to fall asleep.
Then we heard Crash get up. 5:35. He went to the bathroom. I listened to see if he was going to try to sneak downstairs or go back to bed.
He tried to go down. “I don’t think so, chach. It’s only 5:35, go back to bed.” He did, but not willingly. There was some foot stomping. He didn’t slam his door, but he shut it pretty hard.
Sleep is for the dead. We’re not dead. More like zombies.
That’s the backstory.
This evening he was so tired he was nearly inconsolable. Nothing was right. No cup of milk in the fridge? Melt down. Filled the wrong cup? Melt down. Toy didn’t cooperate? Melt down. Loom band bracelet didn’t work? Melt down? Can’t find a train track piece? Melt down. This was at 5:00. Too early to send him to bed. I knew the melt downs were only because he was tired so I didn’t lose any patience. I just gave him what was available and once the melt down subsided he gave in and would accept what was offered.
After supper I did the dishes and got that mess out of the way. Then we headed to the basement to play. I played Lego (piecing together all the Lego people). Bang continued his melt down while building a train track for Thomas the Tank Engine. I didn’t laugh, but when he had a melt down because of a train track piece, it was kind of funny. He wanted to build a train track, so he dumped the whole bucket of track so he could find the right pieces. He needed a turn piece but couldn’t find it. Melt down. Then found it. Then he needed some straight pieces. Couldn’t find the exact one. Melt down. Oh here it is. This went on for 20 minutes. I was nearby, but left him alone. After 20 minutes of happy, melt down, happy, melt down he completed his track.
His finished product
It’s not the fanciest track in the world by any stretch of the imagination. But this track is perfect. It has zero dead ends. It has zero places where his train can’t turn around. He can drive his train forever. It loops back on itself.
By this point it was 6 pm and after waking at 5:30 am I was ready to start getting him ready for a slightly early bedtime. However, I couldn’t not let him play with his track he’d spent too many melt downs creating.
Please, dear God, let our kids sleep later than 5:30.
And no. I don’t mean 5:35, either.
If they are awake at that hour, guess what we’re doing?
Cleaning. That’ll teach ’em to stay in bed longer.
*Note – Bang woke at 4:50, but I convinced him to go back to sleep. He slept until 6:40. Crash woke at 5:19 but I made him go back to bed and try to sleep. He got out of bed at 5:45 but I couldn’t drag myself out to go fight with him to clean. He wins this morning.
All In A Dad's Work 