My Day: July 9

Here's what I did today:

I woke up to my daughter kicking and punching me in the face. Oh wait, before that I woke up to her screaming in her crib because she has this nasty habit of turning herself over on her tummy when she's half awake. Then she starts screaming because she doesn't like it. Duh. So, I went and turned her over and she fell back asleep. That was at about 6:00 or so. My wife must have brought her into bed with us sometime after that. All I know is that I wasn't ready to get out of bed yet. Bah.

Normally in the morning I like to drift in an out of sleep slowly. This is the best way for me to wake up. Some people get right up out of bed. Others get right out of bed mostly asleep and head straight for their morning ritual: strong coffee. As for me, I need time. However, I drifted in and out of sleep this morning with tiny hands and feet pummeling my face and upper torso. Evidently, about 6:30 AM is the perfect time for a four-month-old to practice her newly discovered spitting technique. It was enough to get me a little annoyed but I couldn't get mad because she's just so cute.

Then, work. Blah blah blah. Several hours later, work is done. Rush home to eat so I can get to worship team rehearsal at church. Rehearsal is not without its glitches but, overall, a great time. I'm looking forward to this weekend's services, all four of them.

Of course, we have to drive our little car with over 180K miles on it back and forth because our van is without air conditioning at the moment thanks to our good buddies at NAPA for giving me a defective compressor. That will be fixed on the 22 nd . In the meantime, I get to drive the van to and from work. I look so cool. Secretly, I think my coworkers envy me, especially the one with the Passat with the sunroof.

We get home and Ryan (my 5-year-old) goes to play with the neighbor boys since he never gets to play with them enough. I guess 6 hours of play-time to a kid is like 30 minutes of fun to an adult. Meanwhile inside the house, I don't know what happened. Three hours later, I'm at the computer, Steph is in the living room going through clothes for a yard sale for this weekend, and the kids are in bed.

The process involved in getting my son to bed involves about 12-15 steps and lasts about as long as an episode of Law & Order. Each of those steps can be summed up in one word: delay. He'll do anything to put off going to bed. Milk, snack, more milk, another snack, juice, TV, brush teeth, water, go to the bathroom, put on pajamas, attempt to play with toys, attempt to look at a book, try to watch more TV, slowly get into bed, strike up long conversation with mom or dad, sleep.

I think I have five steps: get up from what I was doing, take off outer clothing, get into bed, kiss Stephanie goodnight, sleep. I don't think I could whittle it down any farther because I'm not about to sleep in my clothes and I can't forget to kiss Steph goodnight. If I made it a habit to not kiss her goodnight, I could reduce it to two steps: stay on the couch, sleep. I guess I'll have to reconsider sleeping in my clothes.