Big Daddy Paul

Stay with this one.

Yesterday Malcolm and I enjoyed a quintessential parenting moment. We had a bit of a hectic evening: the kids didn’t want a play date to end, we fought over whether macaroni and cheese was an acceptable dinner and Malcolm out-negotiated me over the necessity of having a bath. Brushing teeth was a struggle and my choice of pajamas was definitely not up to scrub. I wondered how things were going to end when we finally settled down to read books at the end of the day.

To my surprise, we shared a moment. It was one of those moments when both of you are totally present and the rest of life just fades away. As we read books together, Malcolm asked questions, pointed out words that he knew how to spell, and told me silly stories. He rested his head on my shoulder the whole time, and it was pure bliss.

It got even better when we put the books away and shared a nice little snuggle. Amy often comments that the evening snuggle is one of her favorite experiences with Malcolm now. It transports her back to the days when all Malcolm wanted to do is sit on her lap and give her hugs, an expression of pure love. Last night, I felt the same way. He put his little hands on my face and gave me a tender kiss, and then looked at me and said, “Daddy, I love you. Good night.” I almost melted. It reminded me of when he was born, and I first looked at him and told him how happy I was to see him. I said, “I love you Malcolm, you will always be my special boy.” Then, shifting as if thinking of something else to say, he stuck his finger into his nose, ate half the disgusting blob on his finger and wiped the other half on my cheek before turning and closing his eyes. Rats. Good night indeed, you little shit.

Most of the time, our mornings are OK. Malcolm wakes up just as groggily as Amy and I, and together we all slowly rise to the level of consciousness that the real world requires. Today, however, Malcolm brought the perfect storm of annoying behavior and I almost had to end his short little life prematurely.

It started somewhere around 5:45, when Malcolm came bounding into our room asking if we wanted to play. Amy muttered something about the earliness of the hour and implored him to crawl into bed to get some more sleep. I grunted and turned over, trying desperately to get back to my dream about my high school friends, a beachside pool party, and tennis babe Gabriela Sabatini.  After a short while (over an hour) of Amy pleading with Malcolm to lie still, I finally pulled myself from the bed and took Malcolm downstairs to play. While flitting around the house like a woman in a workout video, he went into the following diatribe:

“Daddy we can have some breakkie? I want cereal. And Eggs and bacon. Do we have any yoghurt? Can I have a mint? Harry Potter has special powers. Can we play monopoly? I love you daddy. Where’s my cereal? Where’s mommy? I’m thirsty. Let’s play tic tac toe. I drew a picture of a shark. He is the smallest dot. You take the chalk and boink him on the head like this. I’m bored. Where’s breakfast? Will you play with me? I want sumping to eat.”

All this before coffee. At first, I casually reminded him that he should only ask for one thing at a time, and that he shouldn’t wine. Minutes later, I regressed to, “STOP BEING ANNOYING! I CAN’T HANDLE YOU UNTIL I DRINK MY COFFEE. GO PLAY IN YOUR ROOM WITH THE DOOR CLOSED!!!”

After breakfast, I pushed him out the backdoor and promptly locked it. When he got bored of playing with the spiders, I threw a ball out to him. He threw it over the fence and had a tantrum. At this point, I reflected on just how long it takes to make coffee and wondered if there was some faster means of jump starting my day. I gave him another ball, but his lips were blue and I could tell he was cold. (He was in pajamas and crocks.)  So, I let him back in and told him to try and not irritate me until after I had my coffee. Now, I am drinking my coffee while he is playing with his legos.  Either I have weathered the storm or he is planning his assault. I don’t really care, because after finishing I am going to google the shit outta Gabriela Sabatini.