How They Wake Up

Getting the kids up in the morning is an irrevocable step. Whether you're ready for them or not, you're committing to looking after them for the foreseeable future, and especially for the initial 20 minutes of getting them all changed/pottied/fed breakfast.

It's important to note that only James is reliably able to tell whether or not he's just taken a nap or slept through the night, so as far as Owen is concerned he should be able to eat a breakfast meal every time he wakes up. If you try to explain to him that it's mid-afternoon, he'll just tell you that today was yesterday, or that next day isn't come yet, or that tomorrow was last night, or some similar Lewis Carrol nonsense. James is also the only child is can be counted on not to have peed in the night. You would think, given how many times we hear the bathroom door opening and closing during the night, that Owen would have sufficiently emptied his bladder to avoid any accidents. But we are still in a pretty unreliable cycle with him. We may need to just throw out his mattress at some point. And Felix, of course, is still in diapers. J thinks that Owen has regressed with staying dry through the night because he's sleeping that much harder after playing that much harder during the long, high-intensity summer days.

This theory would help to explain the other characteristic of Owen's waking-up routine--near drunken grogginess. Once he's awake, the child is a dynamo of movement and chatter. But if you have to wake him up he might not even recognize you. He'll suck his fingers and bury himself under the blankets--or he'll groan unintelligibly about carrying him downstairs and then curl up into a ball on the sofa until he's ready to start for real. He's sort of like a machine with only one very high intensity gear that just repeatedly stalls out until all of a sudden it's on ALL THE WAY. Felix is usually sweet and happy when you get him up. He doesn't make too much noise--just some of his low-voiced babbling and moaning, and when you walk into his room he's sitting in his crib and grinning at you, two teeth poking out of his little gums. He raises up his arms when you go to pick him up, and then he'll rest his head on your shoulder--his heart-melting little hug. His most regular start-of-the day position, though, is arching his head backwards. James and Owen both come in and pay their good mornings to him by standing on the side of his changing table, and he cranes back to look at them and giggle for them.

James is my favorite to get up, though. It's a little bit like getting an owl out of bed. You walk into his room, and his head pops up from the top bunk, glasses sitting crooked on his face. He changes himself into pajamas up there, and they're usually on backwards, or inside out, or both. And then he asks you in a quiet but rapid-fire voice whatever it is that he's been lying awake thinking about for the past hour.

"What was the score to the baseball game and who did the Red Wings play?"
"Do you think that today we can have pancakes for breakfast and have Nutella with them?"
"Are there still seven popsicles left in the freezer, or did you and Mommy eat some of them last night after we went to bed?"
"Is today the day that Miss Jane is going to come over for a visit, and do you think that we can schedule a playdate with Alexa?"
"How does the sun travel from East to West?"
"Do you want to hear some jokes that I read from my clubhouse magazine?"
"How many days until we camp out?"

It's usually better for him if Owen is sleep-drunk, because if Owen is also awake then Owen will immediately start talking in a much louder and more piercing voice, and then you can't hear anything James is saying. You just see an owlish looking six-year old with his hair sticking out in odd directions while the soggy three year old tells you that he was a good boy because he didn't get out of bed to play with toys except for three times, so can he please have some ice cream?

Getting them is an irrevocable step, but always an interesting one.