Sucks To Be You...

Turtle and I had a very busy day today. In addition to working a 40 hour/week job, Oscar also runs a computer consulting firm in his spare time. He has several high-priority projects in the works at the moment, so weekends lately have been less about spending time together as a family and more about making sure Oscar has enough time to finish coding before deadline. And with a deadline looming this week, I decided it would be best to get Turtle out of the house so Oscar could get some work done.

We started out by going to the gym. My gym is nice enough to run a kids' care area, so Turtle can run around and play with the other kids while Mommy gets her ass kicked on the treadmill. Turtle loves it there. He will whine and point vehemently out the window and in the general direction of the gym each and every time we go past it, regardless of whether or not we have already been there that day. Even if I wasn't already inclined to work out on a daily basis, Turtle would doubtless make sure that I did so. His selflessness is amazing for such a young child.

Normally, Turtle would go down for a nap after going to the gym. He wears himself out chasing the other kids and it's nice for me to be able to have some quiet time after going through such a vigorous workout. But we needed to stay out of Oscar's way today, so instead of napping, we went straight to Nana and Grandpa's house. Turtle loves Nana and Grandpa's house. It is his own personal Mecca. They have plenty of toys, as they have embraced their roles as grandparents with great enthusiasm. But most importantly, Nana and Grandpa's house has Nana and Grandpa in it, and Turtle thinks this is the closest thing to heaven he has found. Nana badgered me into eating something and tempted Turtle with some cookies. I should have taken some time to appreciate that a little more because the time he spent eating those cookies was probably the quietest 20 minutes he spent today.

Finally, after we were all fed, we decided to do some shopping, and soon found ourselves at a local department store. Turtle was running full bore up and down every aisle. This kid's energy level is amazing. I'm surprised, with all of the talk our politicians are doing about finding a cleaner energy source, nobody has suggested hooking up this nation's toddlers to large hamster wheels and letting them go to town. We'd never have energy concerns again.

But I digress. Turtle was in rare form, and I was having a hard time keeping up. Luckily, Grandpa finished up his shopping just in time and took him off my hands. Then it was checkout time and off to Target! Turtle ordered his Starbucks (he only drinks decaf....Don't judge me!) and we wandered the toy aisle. We didn't stay long, because by this point, Turtle was beyond tired, being now four hours overdue for his nap. We dropped off Nana and Grandpa and I listened to the screams of my overstimulated toddler as he lamented the fact that he was compelled to return home with his Mommy instead of staying at Camp Nana and Grandpa.

I fully expected him to fall asleep on the ride home, but no. I had to get him inside and take him back to his room and listen to the screams of my overstimulated toddler as he, this time, lamented the fact that he was being compelled to lie down in his crib. He actually fell asleep pretty quickly, but the irony of this child is that when he is the most tired, he sleeps the least, so it was not even an hour later that he woke up and demanded to be let out of the prison in which he found himself. Oscar and I brought him into our bedroom and we lay in bed and watched Pete's Dragon together until Turtle decided he'd had enough of that, too. The rest of the evening passed relatively quickly, thankfully, and at 8:30 we found ourselves at that blessed time of the day known as Turtle's bedtime.

(For those of you wondering when I'm going to get to the point of this story, already, and Sweet Baby Jeebus, woman, could you BE any more wordy???? the answer is, right now. And also? Bite me.)

We changed his clothes, brushed his teeth, gave him big kisses and down he went. Most nights, after such a routine, we won't hear another peep out of him until the morning. Tonight, however, was an exception. He cried when we put him down, but not more than 5 minutes or so and then Oscar and I were sure he had fallen blissfully asleep. After all, he HAD to be worn out from the day's activities and the lack of a decent nap. Oh sure, we thought, he was definitely asleep. Until about 20 minutes later when we heard a plaintive "Dah-ee? DAH-EEE!!!!" coming from Turtle's room. Oscar lifted his head and looked at me with that "Did I just hear what I think I just heard?" look on his face. I started snickering. I wasn't too concerned. I go through this with Turtle all the time. I have hardened my heart to his pathetic pleas for freedom. Mostly. But Oscar? Well, Oscar had a slightly different reaction. It went something like, "Oh sure...he knows YOU'RE not going to get his ass out of bed, so he calls MY name. Because why? Because I'M the sucker that's going to rescue him? No...just no." Poor Oscar. This continued, off and on, for about 45 minutes. And do you know what I was thinking? Because I was not concerned about my son being overtired, or my poor husband, whose heartstrings were being tugged in the worst way. No. I was thinking, "For the love of all things holy, I'm just glad it's you and not me!"