The stay-at-home dad: A quiet morning for mom

It is impossible for my wife to sleep late in our house.

Back before our four kids potty trained, I handled the vast majority of middle-of-the-night diaper changes. I’m not bragging, obviously, because that disruption is nothing compared to the time and effort it takes to breastfeed a baby in the middle of the night. My point is I had plenty of opportunities to train my body to go back to sleep quickly after an early hour wakeup.

My wife, unfortunately, doesn’t have the same ability to drift in and out of consciousness at will. If something stirs her awake, she’ll take much longer to go back to sleep, if at all.

My kids know this, and so on Mother’s Day, they wanted to give her the gift of sleeping late… if only for one glorious morning.

Sadly, as I said already, it’s impossible to sleep late in our house, because it’s impossible for our kids to stay quiet in the morning.

I don’t mean that as a criticism. If anything, I marvel at the energy my two boys display at 7 a.m. Every. Single. Day. How?!

My daughters, on the other hand, tend to stay up later and would prefer to wake up somewhere around 8 a.m. That never happens because their bedroom shares a wall with the boys’ room, and they’re shouting about superheroes and Minecraft at the near crack of dawn.

My energetic boys plus my groggy, sluggish girls equals the near constant risk of tense confrontation. Those confrontations come with screaming, tears and the inevitable parent intervention.

I can deal with it and, more likely than not, go back to bed and catch a few more winks. But for my wife, that first wakeup is the ballgame. Time to start the day.

As for Mother’s Day, I gave my kids so much credit for trying. They truly believed they could let Mom sleep in. In reality, they never had a chance.

The boys woke up at 7 a.m., as always, and the 4-year-old wanted to play cars, and you can’t play cars properly without the requisite “VROOOOOMMMM!” noises. Their bedroom sits below ours, so I heard the “VROOOOOMMS!” at 7:01 a.m. Somehow, my wife wasn’t awake yet, and I tiptoed downstairs to remind him to play quietly. On the way, I heard my 8-year-old son yell at the 4-year-old, “You have to whisper!”

I tried to redirect them, but just as I closed the bedroom door, I heard the loud SCREECH of a walkie talkie. I went back in to see my 8-year-old son sporting an (expletive-deleted)-eating grin.

“What?” he said. “I thought it’d be quieter if we used walkie talkies.”

Anyway, I went back to bed (I probably should have stood vigil instead) and saw that my wife was somehow still asleep, or at least pretending to be — which is sort of like sleeping late but with an underlying tinge of resentment and self-loathing. I fell back asleep instantly, because SUPERPOWER!

Then, in what felt like less than 30 seconds, I stirred awake again to the sound of this conversation happening outside my bedroom door:

My 10-year-old daughter (half whisper): “We’re trying to be quiet for mom. You can’t bounce the ball outside their bedroom!”

My 7-year-old daughter (full speaking voice): “OK, so we’ll go to the boys’ room to play.”

My 4-year-old son (4-year-old voice): “LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

My 8-year-old son (matching his younger brother): “NO. That’s right below mom and dad’s bed. It’ll be LOUDER down there!”

The 4-year-old: “SUPER SPEED! LIGHTNING STRIKE! HAI-YA! YA! YA! YA!”

The 10-year-old (joining the yelling party): “GUYS! THIS IS NOT QUIET!”

The 8-year-old: “Now you’re yelling!”

The 10-year-old: “I’m not yelling, you’re yelling!”

The 8-year-old: “ARGAHHHHH. You ARE yelling!”

The 10-year-old: “THAT’S IT! I’M DONE!”

The 4-year-old: “SPIDER-WEB POWEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!”

I looked at the time on my phone: 7:42 a.m. Then I glanced over at my wife, her eyes wide open staring at the ceiling fan above us, flashing a familiar look that I characterize as the, “This is the bed we made for ourselves” face.

Me: “Happy Mother’s Day!”

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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer and stay-at-home dad to four kids, ages 4-10. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.