Monday, August 30, 2004
School Daze
Boo is fussy. A 102+ degree temperature will do that to you, even if you're a baby. Motrin, liquids and lots of sleep seemed to be helping, and we were limping through the weekend without too much difficulty.
Yesterday afternoon, Max opted for the grocery store rather than a nap. Sometimes, however, the mind is willing, but the body is weak. On the way home, Max fell asleep in the car, and I was confronted with maneuvering a sleeping child from car to bed without rousing him. This challenge is replete with difficulties--carseat buckles, door locks, eager dogs, hard-soled shoes on hardwood floors, window blinds, bed covers, double-knotted shoes on small feet, and so forth. Yesterday we navigated the hazards successfully, and Max remained fast asleep. It was 3:30.
When Max was still sleeping at 6:30, I decided to wake him for dinner. After some jostling, he acknowledged that he wanted to eat, then rolled over and back to sleep. We repeated the process at 7:30. Now Max had been napping for 4 hours. With Boo's condition in mind, I wondered whether Max might be getting sick, too. Shortly after 9:00, I gently worked his limp body beneath the covers and kissed him good night.
At 10:00, Boo awakened, wracked by fever. His neck and belly were so hot that I worried his condition might take a dangerous turn during the night. So Lee and I agreed to put him between us in bed, expecting a relatively easy night with a baby too tired and sick to generate much trouble.
Nice fantasy, but it was pure folly. Boo is a child who adores his father. If he hears Lee's voice at the back door, Boo takes off at a vigorous crawl. When Lee is showering, Boo will scamper into the bathroom and howl beside the shower door until Lee emerges. My efforts to put Boo down can be ruined just by the sound of Lee's voice in the hall. If Lee's in the vicinity, Boo wants to be with his dad. Period.
Last night was no exception. The excitement of being back in our bed was enough to perk Boo up considerably. I might have provided the late night snack, but Lee was the main attraction. Boo pulled himself half way across Lee's torso and rested his cheek on Lee's broad chest like a pillow. Watching them together, the dark outline of Lee's arm draped around Boo's small body, my heart swelled.
We'll never know whether this arrangement might eventually have succeeded, because at 2:30, Max woke up, demanding that I lie down with him. In an effort to broker some much-needed sleep, I went to his room. After more than an hour of pokes, prods and kicks, I gave Max an ultimatum and when he breached it, I retreated to my bed. Max followed. Upon discovering Boo in our bed, Max climbed aboard, too.
Surely it is a testament to our impaired judgment that we actually entertained the possibility of sleeping--all four of us--in our bed. The excitement was way too much for the boys. Lying nose to nose with his brother, Max exclaimed, "I LIKE BABIES! BOO BOO LIKES ME, TOO!" And then they both began to laugh. First chuckles, then chortles, then paroxysms of laughter. That's when it dawned on me that Max wasn't in the throes of his typical "I want you to lie down with me" negotations. Max didn't have a fever. He'd just finished 11 hours of sleep. He was awake. Completely, unfalteringly awake. "Mommy, I want to play with my train tracks." I got out of bed.
And so our day began. First train tracks. Then tunnels. Then trucks. Truthfully, I was trying to remain horizontal as much as possible, but no sooner would I begin to doze than Max would startle me awake with a remark like, "Look, mommy, I've climbed all the way to the top of the closet!" Who knew that he could transform the built-in cabinetry in his closet into an ad hoc climbing wall?
At 5:00 Max announced, "Mommy, I want to go to the kitchen. I'm hungry." He had, after all, skipped dinner. "I want goldfish." In case you think I'm a terrible mom for serving Max goldfish for breakfast, I did supplement it with cold pizza. This morning, I was incapable of adjudicating any kind of gastronomic boundaries; it was all I could do just to be awake. Then came drawing. Play dough. Cutting and pasting shapes. The Wiggles. By the time Lee wandered into the kitchen shortly before 7:00, Max and I had covered a lot of territory. "Are you going to take Max to school this morning?" he asked. "You're damn right I am," I said. "It can't start soon enough."
There's hidden irony in these words. The school that Max attended last year began at 9:00, but a lot of parents routinely brought their kids in the environs of 9:15. To my way of thinking, it was a very civilized schedule. I had enough time to make the bed, read the paper, and pick up a latte on the way to school (although if I dallied too long, the 9:15 train delayed us even further). While Max's new school officially begins at 8:30, the drop-off time for his extended day program is 8:00. Granted, that's intended as a convenience for working parents, and I may never make the 8:00 carpool line, but as I've contemplated the start of the school year, even 8:30 has seemed a bit punitive to me.
But not this morning. When we arrived at 8:10, Max was sound asleep. I extracted him from the car, taking notice of his appearance for the first time this morning. His hair was tossled and a few crumbs and smudges encircled his puckered lips. The slightly rumpled T-shirt in which he'd slept yesterday was not dirty exactly, but it certainly looked tired. (Didn't we all?) How is it that I managed not to change Max's shirt this morning? I can't even recall my decision-making process. It was not my finest morning as Max's mom. Looking rather ragged myself, I carried Max into his classroom, his head nodding on my shoulder. I explained Max's circumstances to his teacher and told her to call if he was so exhausted that he was disruptive to the class. It took only seconds for Max to join the action. And with a relieved sigh, I left. Last week, Greg said with a laugh that he sometimes thought school was invented so that mothers didn't go crazy. If only it started at 2:30 in the morning.
Yesterday afternoon, Max opted for the grocery store rather than a nap. Sometimes, however, the mind is willing, but the body is weak. On the way home, Max fell asleep in the car, and I was confronted with maneuvering a sleeping child from car to bed without rousing him. This challenge is replete with difficulties--carseat buckles, door locks, eager dogs, hard-soled shoes on hardwood floors, window blinds, bed covers, double-knotted shoes on small feet, and so forth. Yesterday we navigated the hazards successfully, and Max remained fast asleep. It was 3:30.
When Max was still sleeping at 6:30, I decided to wake him for dinner. After some jostling, he acknowledged that he wanted to eat, then rolled over and back to sleep. We repeated the process at 7:30. Now Max had been napping for 4 hours. With Boo's condition in mind, I wondered whether Max might be getting sick, too. Shortly after 9:00, I gently worked his limp body beneath the covers and kissed him good night.
At 10:00, Boo awakened, wracked by fever. His neck and belly were so hot that I worried his condition might take a dangerous turn during the night. So Lee and I agreed to put him between us in bed, expecting a relatively easy night with a baby too tired and sick to generate much trouble.
Nice fantasy, but it was pure folly. Boo is a child who adores his father. If he hears Lee's voice at the back door, Boo takes off at a vigorous crawl. When Lee is showering, Boo will scamper into the bathroom and howl beside the shower door until Lee emerges. My efforts to put Boo down can be ruined just by the sound of Lee's voice in the hall. If Lee's in the vicinity, Boo wants to be with his dad. Period.
Last night was no exception. The excitement of being back in our bed was enough to perk Boo up considerably. I might have provided the late night snack, but Lee was the main attraction. Boo pulled himself half way across Lee's torso and rested his cheek on Lee's broad chest like a pillow. Watching them together, the dark outline of Lee's arm draped around Boo's small body, my heart swelled.
We'll never know whether this arrangement might eventually have succeeded, because at 2:30, Max woke up, demanding that I lie down with him. In an effort to broker some much-needed sleep, I went to his room. After more than an hour of pokes, prods and kicks, I gave Max an ultimatum and when he breached it, I retreated to my bed. Max followed. Upon discovering Boo in our bed, Max climbed aboard, too.
Surely it is a testament to our impaired judgment that we actually entertained the possibility of sleeping--all four of us--in our bed. The excitement was way too much for the boys. Lying nose to nose with his brother, Max exclaimed, "I LIKE BABIES! BOO BOO LIKES ME, TOO!" And then they both began to laugh. First chuckles, then chortles, then paroxysms of laughter. That's when it dawned on me that Max wasn't in the throes of his typical "I want you to lie down with me" negotations. Max didn't have a fever. He'd just finished 11 hours of sleep. He was awake. Completely, unfalteringly awake. "Mommy, I want to play with my train tracks." I got out of bed.
And so our day began. First train tracks. Then tunnels. Then trucks. Truthfully, I was trying to remain horizontal as much as possible, but no sooner would I begin to doze than Max would startle me awake with a remark like, "Look, mommy, I've climbed all the way to the top of the closet!" Who knew that he could transform the built-in cabinetry in his closet into an ad hoc climbing wall?
At 5:00 Max announced, "Mommy, I want to go to the kitchen. I'm hungry." He had, after all, skipped dinner. "I want goldfish." In case you think I'm a terrible mom for serving Max goldfish for breakfast, I did supplement it with cold pizza. This morning, I was incapable of adjudicating any kind of gastronomic boundaries; it was all I could do just to be awake. Then came drawing. Play dough. Cutting and pasting shapes. The Wiggles. By the time Lee wandered into the kitchen shortly before 7:00, Max and I had covered a lot of territory. "Are you going to take Max to school this morning?" he asked. "You're damn right I am," I said. "It can't start soon enough."
There's hidden irony in these words. The school that Max attended last year began at 9:00, but a lot of parents routinely brought their kids in the environs of 9:15. To my way of thinking, it was a very civilized schedule. I had enough time to make the bed, read the paper, and pick up a latte on the way to school (although if I dallied too long, the 9:15 train delayed us even further). While Max's new school officially begins at 8:30, the drop-off time for his extended day program is 8:00. Granted, that's intended as a convenience for working parents, and I may never make the 8:00 carpool line, but as I've contemplated the start of the school year, even 8:30 has seemed a bit punitive to me.
But not this morning. When we arrived at 8:10, Max was sound asleep. I extracted him from the car, taking notice of his appearance for the first time this morning. His hair was tossled and a few crumbs and smudges encircled his puckered lips. The slightly rumpled T-shirt in which he'd slept yesterday was not dirty exactly, but it certainly looked tired. (Didn't we all?) How is it that I managed not to change Max's shirt this morning? I can't even recall my decision-making process. It was not my finest morning as Max's mom. Looking rather ragged myself, I carried Max into his classroom, his head nodding on my shoulder. I explained Max's circumstances to his teacher and told her to call if he was so exhausted that he was disruptive to the class. It took only seconds for Max to join the action. And with a relieved sigh, I left. Last week, Greg said with a laugh that he sometimes thought school was invented so that mothers didn't go crazy. If only it started at 2:30 in the morning.
2 Comments:
How are you all doing, two days later? Is Boo feeling better? Is everyone sleeping better?
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