Start your anniversary early!

Around 11pm last night I finished sanding a little stool that I made so I could sit beside Amelia's new bed and read her stories. I was up a bit late because the night before I went to bed too early and was fully awake at 2:30am.

I was sleeping well until I heard Amelia moaning about her head. She had bumped it at school on a little stairway. No big deal--just a little black and blue. I went into her room and she was holding her cold compress. She wanted me to "make it cold." I went downstairs and got a new one but it was not shaped like a car. She wanted the one shaped like a car. I brought back the warm one--the one shaped like a car--and she happily put it on her head, pulled the covers over her face and went back to sleep.

It is 4 steps to get out of her room if you take long strides. The first step is the worst you have to avoid a loose board that doesn't just squeak--it pops as it clips its nearby boards on the way down to the joists. Tonight I missed that one. And I didn't make too much noise as I tried to glide over the last three squeakers. I had one leg over the security gate in Amelia's doorway and she popped up her head, looked right at me and loudly said, "TUCK!"

Tuck means that she wants to be tucked in. I hate this because I always tuck her in when I am leaving her room. She is just totally using me and my softiness. She knows I will come back and tuck her in one or two more times. But it was early in the am--argg. I tucked her in and escaped the room. She asked for more tucks but I scurried downstairs and after a few minutes she was quiet. I didn't want to wake Amelia, Heidi or Zoe by climbing back up the stairs so I took up a spot on the couch. I sat in the middle of the couch, adjusted a pillow in the right place, turned my body and began to lie down on my back. The instant before my head was down--I heard a shout--"Tails."

Tails is what Amelia shouts when she wants us to redo her pig tails. At the hour I didn't consider trying to convince her that tails were not needed in bed. I just went up and redid them. But I redid them poorly. Those of you who pull your hair up or who have kids will understand. You grab a sufficient amount of hair and put on the elastic. Then you twist and pull it over the hair again, then back. If you don't do it enough times it is way too loose and will fall off in minutes. This is where I left it.

So repeat the lying down on the couch paragraph and I was back upstairs to do the tails again. I don't know how many times this happened but I eventually took my sleeping bag and pillow upstairs to sleep on Amelia's floor. The squeaky boards are squeaky partly because they are uneven so my hip settled into a spot about 1 inch lower than my legs and body. This would be comfortable if it were a sleep number bed but a substrate of wood is not so forgiving. Amelia kept talking and intermittently sleeping, or at least being quiet. I never felt like I got any sleep but I did feel like I was protecting Amelia from herself and had her contained in one room.

Feet on my head. Amelia was crawling out of her bed and using my dozing head as a step stool on the way out. I saw light out the windows so I figured we could go down and begin the day. Amelia was beginning her morning mantra--hungry, hungry, hungry--and I can always get up when the sun is out. We made our way downstairs. I turned on Clifford (and entire blog should be dedicated to analysis of this kid heroin program). And I again took my repose on the couch. I looked at the clock and it was not our normal wake up time of 6am----it was 5am.

Sure there is more to this story. Amelia falling asleep on the way to school. Me falling asleep at my desk at work. Loosing my glasses because I was that tired. Wandering in to a Staples and wondering why it was so dark--before realizing that I had sunglasses on. But to get the whole story you would need an essayist who had slept all night. I knew that kids would be lots of work but I didn't know of their virus/parasitic quality. Like a parasite they not only are part of your world but they begin to control your world--no one told me this. Life is amazing and fun but it is not longer controlled by Tom or Heidi. It is controlled by Amelia who is quickly training Zoe to do the same.

Happy 4th anniversary to my great wife Heidi!