Where I detail a poor night of sleep

It was a sunny, hot day when I got the kids. A Wednesday afternoon, Leila normally has dance — but she just hasn’t been into dance as much as she once was. She does enjoy looking at herself in the mirror while wearing her purple leotard with a matching tutu. And the change from ballet to tap always elicits a brief “oooh, this is fun” moment . . . but I think she, either, is frustrated by not moving as gracefully as a ballerina after a few months of practice, or is finding that she has the moves & grace of her father, and that maybe dance isn’t “her thing.” Whatever the case, she’s been saying, for a few weeks, that she doesn’t want to do dance anymore.

It was a hot, sunny day . . . dealing with a potential tantrum while getting The La dressed in her leotard and then sitting in the hot dance studio while keeping CJ entertained just held zero interest for me. “Who wants to go to the pool?”

The wee ones were unanimous.

We put on our bathing suits, packed some snacks, got to the community pool, put on our sunscreen, and went at it. Oh, how I wish I had the “go full blast, without ever stopping” that my kids do. For an hour & half, we splashed and shot water guns and made friends and ate snacks and swam and had a good time.

But silly daddy now had a conundrum on his hands. The kids shouldn’t hang out in their bathing suits at home . . . but it wasn’t bedtime. That said, I made the mistake of suggesting that the kids put on their pajamas, even though it wasn’t bedtime. It took two timeouts for yelling for Leila to realize that pajamas don’t necessarily mean bedtime.

Dinner was uneventful — we’re still eating leftover watermelon from La’s birthday, so it was fruit filled.

Bedtime was some TV shows and some Scooby Doo “learn to read” books before the battle cry was sounded.

“Dada, I sleep in your room tonight?”

Most every night, one or both of the kids will ask this question. We are not strict “you must sleep in your room” parents. But, we’re trying to put our feet down & saying that you must start the night in your room. Following the “No” I had to deliver came “dada, you cuddle me?”

It was from CJ’s lips — it’s a common refrain when he realizes that he needs to go down to bed in his room. We turn out the lights & daddy promptly falls asleep the kid eventually falls asleep.

I wake & work my way back over to the master bedroom.

CJ comes over before midnight, snuggling up in my left armpit.

A thunderstorm rolls in, waking me.

The shortsightedness of putting the kids in their pajamas well before bedtime becomes apparent when Leila wets herself . . . normally, we put the kids in overnight pull-ups when we put their PJ’s on. I strip her bed, put a pull-up on her, and bring her into bed with us.

I lie back down and both of my hamstrings immediately cramp.

I’ve been doing one-legged squats, every day, for a fitness challenge — the first day, I did 10 pull-ups, dips, and one-legged “pistol” squats. The next day I did 11 . . . and so on and so forth. Yesterday, I did 35. While my body is certainly responding positively to these exercises . . . last night was the first “beyond sore” side effect. I breathed deeply, stood, and, eventually, the cramping subsided.

I lay myself back down and my shoulders & upper back went into a non-painful, but highly-annoying spasm.

Perhaps I didn’t drink enough water . . . though the shitton¹ of watermelon I ate with dinner should have had me perfectly hydrated. And full of potassium. But who knows what happened. My body just hated me.

I grab a glass of water and, again, lay myself back down . . . but my cuddly little son now, deep in the throes of sleep, attempts to burrow is hands and feet under me.

This drives me crazy.

At 4:30, I head back to where I started the night . . . in his bed, beneath the Star Wars tent we’ve erected on said bed.

Today was a long day before I even got to work. Have any coffee I can spare?

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