My Little Man

Andy, my oldest, has always been an early riser. When he was a baby, we would hear him around 6a everyday, and he would play happily in his crib for about an hour before he started yelling for us to come get him. It is physically impossible for him to sleep in. He is that kid that no matter what time he went to bed, he will always get up at the same time in the morning.

He started sleeping in a twin bed at a crazy early age, around 19 months, so at that point we had to get up when he did. Charlie and I would take turns getting up with him on the weekends. I would get up on Saturdays and let Charlie sleep in, and he got up on Sundays so I could sleep in. We both really like to sleep, so getting up with Andy was tough work.

It went on like this for the first several years, until Charlie finally set some rules for Andy. Rule #1: You cannot get out of your bed before 7:30a on the weekends. This was not to torture the kid, although it truly does, but to prevent him from waking up at an ungodly hour and getting up instead of going back to bed. The hope was that he would see it wasn't time to get up yet, and he would roll over and go back to sleep. Of course, I don't think he does that. Overall he is a rule follower, so he stays in bed as he's told, and most likely just stares at the clock until 7:30a pops up. In fact, we have been woken up on more than one occasion where Andy is fighting with Sarah telling her they cannot get out of bed yet because it's too early.

Side note: Andy and Sarah are currently sharing a room and Sarah, being 3, cannot tell time.

Andy mastered the tv and remote control years ago. He is truly a power tv watcher, like his mother. If he's watching tv, everything else gets blocked out. So, he doesn't need to wake us up to start watching tv in the morning, and we don't want to watch the shows he likes anyway. A win/win for everybody. Rule #2: Turn on the tv in the game room to Playhouse Disney before going downstairs to watch your own shows. This was an ingenious rule. Basically it meant turn on the tv for your sister so that when she wakes up she can watch what she wants, you can watch what you want, and mom and dad can continue to sleep without any fighting. So, now Sarah knows to go into the game room when she wakes up, which unfortunately is now soon after he does, and watch her shows until we get up. Don't get me wrong, we don't let this go on all morning. One of us will drag ourselves out of bed by 8a to be with the kids, and now that we have Amanda it's usually even earlier than that.

So that's the weekends. During the week Charlie is in charge of Andy, so I don't really know what he does. He doesn't have an alarm clock, so usually gets up, gets himself dressed and then goes down to watch tv. Occasionally Charlie has to wake him up, but that may be once a month if that.

This morning I was in charge of driving Andy to school because Charlie was out in Vail for a "work" ski trip. Don't get me started. Anyway, I showered last night so I'd be ready to go this morning, and I set my alarm for 7a. He starts school at 7:45a and we live less than a mile from the school, so that gives me plenty of time to get him there. Suprisingly I woke up around 6:50a. I was still lying in bed when Andy and Sarah came into my room at 6:59a, right before my alarm went off. He was already dressed. Fantastic! I asked him if he could get his own breakfast. His response, "I always do." Excellent!

I got Sarah and myself dressed and headed downstairs to finish his lunch. I made the sandwich the night before and put it in the fridge, but needed to put the rest together. By now he had already eaten breakfast and cleared his place. Nice! He had taken his sandwich out of the fridge and put an apple next to it for me to cut. I had left an apple on the counter ready and washed the night before, but good for him. I cut his apple, threw in some crackers, and grabbed a frozen Gogurt to put in his lunch box. Already there. The kid thinks of everything.

Now, either he was trying to be really helpful, which is a good possibility, or he didn't think that I would know or remember what to do. With Andy and his belief that I don't know much, I'm pretty sure it's the latter. Even so, I am so proud that the kid knows how to take care of himself better than some grown men. I am also so happy to know that all those years of getting up with him painfully early have finally paid off.

Hopefully more and more of those things will begin to show. The hard work you put in wondering if your kids will ever get it. It's days like these and little things like this that let you know that all this work is not for nothing and someday my children will be functional human beings. However it's also just a tiny bit sad (and I mean a really, really tiny bit) to know that my little man is growing up and sooner than later will be out that door.