A big change of late around the house is the fact my kids are starting to embrace the joy of sleeping.
Up until a couple months ago, both my kids were always out of bed by 6 in the morning. Not only were they awake, but they were up, full of energy and ready to do something from the get go.
In the early days, that usually meant they were causing trouble and there was little time for their parents to wake up before it was damage control mode.
I clearly recall Beckett being a toddler and him going through this phase when each morning he would test me while I was making him breakfast. He would call me from the living room and I would find him in various states of imminent injury. He could be standing on an ottoman pretending he was surfing, trying to scale the grandfather clock like Spiderman or seeing which remote control he could throw across the room the farthest in the air.
The same goes for Carson with a slew of different examples of early-morning drama, like going through a phase when he would try and flee the house without anyone knowing it or tormenting the sleepy dogs by piling toys atop them. He found that hilarious for months.
Within the last couple months, there has been a decided change, one we have been hoping would come for years. Our early risers are starting to sleep in a little bit.
Although Carson has still not slept past 8 in the morning and is usually awake by 7, he is no longer up at 4 or 5 a.m., which was a daily occurrence for months during last school year. That’s huge progress for him. We will take it at this point. He does occasionally still have mornings of insanity when he’s up and raising hell in the house at 6 in the morning, but they are now rare. When those were commonplace, life was challenging.
Without question, Beckett has definitely found the love of sleep. He usually mildly resists the bedtime call at night, no matter the time, but he knows his parents do not mess around with that. As a result, our kids go to bed well and know the schedule is rarely altered outside of special occasions.
Over the course of this summer, thanks probably to outside exhaustion, Beckett has slept past 9 a.m. a few times and he seems to like trying to set new personal records. I encourage that.
I lost my mind a month or so ago.
It was a Saturday afternoon in early July and there I was in a water park in Rehoboth Beach for a birthday party for one of Beckett’s classmates.
On the well over an hour drive there, I had thoughts about how crazy I am for driving this far in the heart of the summer, but it’s one of those times when you accept that you do what you can for your kids and oftentimes it’s ridiculous how far parents will go if the kids ask in the right tone.
The good news for me is I love water parks just as much as my kids. With Beckett wanting to do his own thing with his friends (gulp), I was off to enjoy it by myself because Pam and Carson were on their own adventure at home. I enjoyed the alone time to be honest.
Unfortunately, we were there for about an hour before the sky became a disturbing color you never want to see and torrential rains followed. It didn’t bother the kids one bit and all the parents could do was laugh as we huddled under a huge overhang and watched them. I just remember hoping the storm would move quickly, but that never happened.
Eventually, the park alerted everyone it was closing due to approaching thunderstorms. That’s when the mad dash to our belongings and vehicles began. All the parents could do was laugh in disbelief.
We then all got on Route 1 and sat in gridlock and then we sat some more. That’s when I realized round trip this was probably going to be three hours of driving for one hour at the water park.
I decided we needed to cure our sorrows with some ice cream, and Beckett will never turn that down.
My oldest son’s selective memory constantly amazes me.
He can remember lyrics from songs he hears after one time. He can recite bible passages he is told to memorize from Sunday School months later. He can recall something funny a teacher or classmate said from last fall. He remembers all the details about the time I told him I had to deliver newspapers because two drivers called out scared the morning Hurricane Floyd hit in 1999.
However, if I ask him what was his favorite part of camp was at pickup time, he mutters, “nothing.” An hour later, if I ask him the same thing, he will say, “you already asked me that.” I agree but want an answer.
“I can’t remember,” he replies.