Tuesday, August 7, 2012

He is Happy!

Lately, William has made bedtime a struggle. I'm not just talking about our little scare the other night, which by the way has not happened again, the new safety door lock is amazing. No, it's much more than that. When we close his door at night, we do so with the understanding that the room we saw as we left will not be there in the morning. William has taken to a variety of tasks before actually falling asleep. Things like putting on extra clothing, flipping his mattress over, or taking the majority of his clothes out of the dresser. In the end, I'll take cleaning up the clothes over finding that he's been playing outside while everyone was asleep, but it would still be nice of him to cut me a break. A little one?

He is growing up, no doubt about that, and with new levels of expectations comes new levels of stressful situations. Potty training is proof of that. When your kids are very young there is always a lot of discussion of milestones or normalcy for their age groups. We as parents are trained, in a way, to expect certain things to occur with our kids within a set time frame. Tonight I was reminded that I've never thought to ask if my son was happy. No one told me at what age I should check into that. I see his smiling face and hear his laughter which indicates happiness, but even though I know William doesn't say very much (although lately he has been kicking that habit), it's only fair that I would ask him at some point.


Tonight while I was washing some dishes, Melissa came downstairs and announced, "You need to come look at your son." Melissa and I have a general rule when it comes to the boys, and I think it's a pretty common thing for parents. Phrases like, "That's my boy" are for when we want to personally take credit for something. On the other hand, "your son" is generally followed by something not necessarily bad, just something we want to pretend doesn't stem from watching us. Considering it was well past the time he should have been asleep, I was assuming it had something to do with dad's inherited "angry sleeping face." Yeah, I sleep with a very displeased face.

I was informed that he had put on a pair of underwear over his pajamas, which really isn't that bad. It was so much better! He had put on six totally different socks, three on each foot. I'll admit that I like to keep the house a little on the cold side, I run hot, but 3 socks per foot seems like overkill. He was in fact wearing underwear over his pajamas...backwards. Awesome. Also my personal favorite, a single sock on his right hand. It's the kind of outfit women think of when the picture that perfect guy. William is way ahead of the curve.

Melissa woke him up, as he had pulled the top mattress off again. We got him all settled in and Melissa walked out of the door, saying good night. I stood for a few moments with a big grin on my face. Stuff like this, is the kind of ridiculous that makes people want to have kids. I believe that. I leaned in, gave him a tight squeeze, and a kiss. With one more stupid grin moment, I turned to leave saying, "You look silly, buddy."

From a rather sleepy face, "I'm HAPPY!"

So I've got that goin' for me...



Angry sleep.



1 comment:

  1. At the end of the day it matters most that they are happy :) You're a good dad Evan

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