My son woke up at 5:15 this Sunday morning. I tried potty and back to bed. No dice. I tried laying with him. No dice. I tried "we don't get up until the sun comes up". No dice. He was awake and therefore I was going to be awake, too.
Sometimes I explain things to my son that he has no chance of understanding. On this occasion I told him that we could get up, but that he was going to have to eat his breakfast like a big boy and then play with his toys in the living room while Daddy got a little work done.. My foggy, gruff thought process was as follows: the little punk wants to get up before the dawn?-- fine! he can play by himself and while I salvage the situation by looking up my patients for tomorrow's clinic -- cross at least one thing off my list for the day.
Readers with children will know that the two year old variety agrees to everything, follows through with nothing, persists in whining and veers off course quickly. This morning my son had tragically lost the ability to feed himself oatmeal (he often wolfs down two bowls) and thus my attention was split between my laptop screen and lapping oats and raisins into his mouth. Then he played in the living room for about 90 seconds only to come back over to my side. He tugged on my arm and asked "Daddy, what are you doing?" I said, "I'm working Buddy, go play!" Then he told me about five times in a row that he had to go potty and thus needed me to get up from the table and help him. And five times I did get up with diminishing returns each time, promptly returning to my seat at the dining room table. Then my son told me the names of all the planets (we talk about the planets several times each day). At this point I was doing my best to ignore him and for the most part was succeeding.
Chipper as ever and not one to give up, my son finally one-offed the following comment: "I'm going to be an astronaut and go into outer space." Space freak that I am, I abruptly stopped looking through patient charts for a moment and pondered. Then I turned and looked at my two year old and said, "I will be proud of you whatever you do. But if you become an astronaut, Daddy will be extra extra proud!" Without missing a beat, my son replied, "[Son of Shaft] and Daddy will go into outer space together!"
With that image, offered up by a very genuine two year old, I stopped working. I smiled and my eyes actually welled up a little bit. I didn't say it, but "I only wish that would be true" went through my mind. After another pause, I shut the laptop with the force of a father who realizes that he lets his job take priority too often.
I picked up my son and executed a few wrestling moves to his pure delight. Ultimately we ended up in a big comfy sofa chair -- better known as the Son of Shaft's space ship. After a few button pushes on the ship's control panel (a throw pillow with a checkered pattern), we flew to Mars with Commander Flubby and Lieutenant Sandra Monkey in tow. The Son of Shaft bravely left our ship and explored the surface. He examined some Martian pumpkins only to make it back to the space ship just in time to avoid the Martian rain storms. We lifted off back to Earth and landed just in time to notice a beautiful sun rise out the window.
I almost missed it.
Sometimes I explain things to my son that he has no chance of understanding. On this occasion I told him that we could get up, but that he was going to have to eat his breakfast like a big boy and then play with his toys in the living room while Daddy got a little work done.. My foggy, gruff thought process was as follows: the little punk wants to get up before the dawn?-- fine! he can play by himself and while I salvage the situation by looking up my patients for tomorrow's clinic -- cross at least one thing off my list for the day.
Readers with children will know that the two year old variety agrees to everything, follows through with nothing, persists in whining and veers off course quickly. This morning my son had tragically lost the ability to feed himself oatmeal (he often wolfs down two bowls) and thus my attention was split between my laptop screen and lapping oats and raisins into his mouth. Then he played in the living room for about 90 seconds only to come back over to my side. He tugged on my arm and asked "Daddy, what are you doing?" I said, "I'm working Buddy, go play!" Then he told me about five times in a row that he had to go potty and thus needed me to get up from the table and help him. And five times I did get up with diminishing returns each time, promptly returning to my seat at the dining room table. Then my son told me the names of all the planets (we talk about the planets several times each day). At this point I was doing my best to ignore him and for the most part was succeeding.
Chipper as ever and not one to give up, my son finally one-offed the following comment: "I'm going to be an astronaut and go into outer space." Space freak that I am, I abruptly stopped looking through patient charts for a moment and pondered. Then I turned and looked at my two year old and said, "I will be proud of you whatever you do. But if you become an astronaut, Daddy will be extra extra proud!" Without missing a beat, my son replied, "[Son of Shaft] and Daddy will go into outer space together!"
With that image, offered up by a very genuine two year old, I stopped working. I smiled and my eyes actually welled up a little bit. I didn't say it, but "I only wish that would be true" went through my mind. After another pause, I shut the laptop with the force of a father who realizes that he lets his job take priority too often.
I picked up my son and executed a few wrestling moves to his pure delight. Ultimately we ended up in a big comfy sofa chair -- better known as the Son of Shaft's space ship. After a few button pushes on the ship's control panel (a throw pillow with a checkered pattern), we flew to Mars with Commander Flubby and Lieutenant Sandra Monkey in tow. The Son of Shaft bravely left our ship and explored the surface. He examined some Martian pumpkins only to make it back to the space ship just in time to avoid the Martian rain storms. We lifted off back to Earth and landed just in time to notice a beautiful sun rise out the window.
I almost missed it.