Captain Jack Crunch

I wake up to the sound of Jack crying, and silently beg for him to go back to sleep.  I was up 3 times in the night with him, and I'm exhausted IT'S SPRING BREAK FOR PETE'S SAKE I DON'T HAVE TO GO ANYWHERE OR DO ANYTHING THAT REQUIRES A 7:35 AM WAKE UP CALL, child.  Let me sleep.

The wailing continues.

That sleep thing just isn't going to happen.

I rescue him from his crib, which we keep in the closet.  It's a closet with a heating vent, two outlets, and a large window, but a closet nonetheless.  What can I say?  I don't have the heart to move him to the Land of Far, Far Away (upstairs, where the terrible parents of this house make the older children sleep), and, yet, I just don't want him right next to me, screaming all night and early in the morning.  I need my space.

The wailing escalates.

I drag my weary body out of my lusciously warm bed, and head to the closet.  Jack's wailing stops immediately and his face lights up with a grin when he sees me.

"Good Morning!" I pull up the blinds and tell him the same thing I do every day, "It's morning now.  Good morning. This is the time to be awake."

I say this because I read a book on how to get your child to sleep through the night, and that is supposed to help.  It obviously isn't working with Jack.  Damn sleep experts. I should have just spent that time napping instead of reading.

What? You'd be cussing, too, if you hadn't had more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep in the last year and a half.

 I change his super soggy diaper, and we head to the kitchen, maneuvering through the gauntlet of Kix and Cheerios on the floor.There are some nights where I'm just too tired to clean the kitchen after dinner, and last night was one of them.

I think about allowing the dog to come inside and clean my floor for me, but decide it's just not an option since she would probably wind up killing the cat, and we need the cat around to kill the mice and keep grandma company.  Still, I think about it some more, and give Jack more Kix to catapult across the room.

Crunch, crunch.

This is sound of walking on my kitchen floor today.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

I heat up some pears and oatmeal for the baby, and London joins us for breakfast.  Cocoa Puffs for her, in our Noah's Ark bowl.  Cocoa Puffs are chocolaty, but actually have less sugar than even most of the 'healthy' cereals on the store shelf. This is how I justify buying them, because feeding your kids chocolate for breakfast somehow needs justification, I know.

Crunch, crunch.

This is the sound of my children eating.

The sound makes me think about letting my dog in again.  I resist the impulse.

I cook two eggs for myself, over easy, and am sure to grease the pan with the canola oil spray in the green can before cracking the shells.

I feed Jack his pears while they cook.  Big bites.  He rips his bib off, and it joins the mess on the ceramic tile.  Feeding an 8 month old becomes a whole new kind of challenge when there is no bib left to shield his clothing from whatever Gerber mush is on the menu; this is why we wait until after breakfast to get dressed. He flashes his charming grin, showing off all his new teeth.  He reaches out a dimpled hand and pinches one of the small golden balls left on his high chair tray between his thumb and pointer finger and brings it carefully to his mouth.

Crunch, crunch, baby.  

Crunch, crunch.