7 am, he wakes, I hear him on the monitor. Actually, he’s probably been awake for at least 15 minutes now because by the time I wake from my dreams of trips to Italy in skinny jeans he’s audibly annoyed that I’ve yet to come pick him up. I stumble out my bedroom door, through the living room and kitchen, down the hall, and into his room. A trip that seems to be, in total, about 5 miles long. It’s still dark-ish outside. He seems sleepy-ish still. As I reach in to pick him up, I see him rub his eyes. The little ember of hope burns inside me. Maybe, just maybe he will go back to sleep. Ahhhh…that would be SO nice. It’s raining outside. Rainy days are meant for sleeping in, at least past 8. How do I communicate that to a 10 month old?
We go back to my bed, snuggle under the covers, I flop a boob out and he happily cuddles up to me and eats. “Please, please, please, magical boobs, do your magic. Make him sleepy,” I think. I doze in and out to the soft noises of my little piglet snorting and sucking. He seems to have a stuffy nose every morning these days, which turns to a runny snot nose by breakfast and a crusty booger nose by lunch. It’s a giant PITA to keep clean, and snot on my boobs has become a fact of life these days.
As he finishes off on the other side he pops off and smiles at me. “No!” I think, “Okay, don’t move. Keep your eyes closed. Maybe if he thinks you’re sleeping, he’ll go to sleep.” We both lay there, silently willing each other to go to sleep/wake up. In my head I’m saying to him, “How can you NOT want to sleep right now? It’s cold out and rainy and we are so toasty warm and snugly here. We don’t have anything important to do today. Sleeping in is so much fun! I swear when you are 13 you will be begging to stay in bed.” He’s probably thinking something like, “Ugh. Come ON, mom. Let’s get up! I have things to do today. I have to climb onto the fireplace and figure out how to open those glass doors. I have to pull the internet cord out of the wall completely in the office. I’ve been working on that project for days now. Stop being so lazy!”
Of course, he always wins now that he’s mobile. There is only so long I can lay there with my hand gripping his ankle, preventing him from launching himself off the side of the bed. I used to distract him for a few minutes by letting him play with my phone, but he quickly managed to get it unlocked and called his father at work not too long ago. I had no idea until, from my sleepy haze, I heard my husband’s distant voice coming from the inside of Kendall’s mouth. So I get up with him, and that ember of hope stays lit, waiting for nap time.
Kendall is 10 months, 3 weeks and 3 days old