Chocolate leaf water
And other things we're cooking up right now.
I haven’t written about our bedtime routine in over a year, which means we’re due for an update. Things have changed.
First, and most notably, when I carry the boy to bed, he now tries to grab onto anything that would cause me to stop walking. Door frames, chairs, pictures on the wall, banisters, the TV, etc.
It’s difficult to fully grasp what Sodom and Gomorrah had to do to make God so mad that he sent fire from heaven to destroy them. And yet…at the end of a long evening when I’m clotheslined by the arm of the child I’m holding...I kinda get it.
Obviously, that is how the night ends, but to walk through the events in chronological order would do a disservice to the sense of general chaos and disorder.
Instead, here is the “routine” in its full erratic glory.
I forget to make the bottle most nights and the seven minutes it takes to heat up are the most tense moments of my day. This is my job. I’ve committed to it. I only have to do it once. And yet, I struggle.
The boy can get himself out of the bath now. Which has been a real thrill for our mop that is now getting nightly use.
Even if I catch him before he gets out, when the boys share a bath, they tend to scream and splash so much that the bathroom becomes more of a lagoon with half-inch-high water moving slowly toward the door. Admittedly, I love it when they scream and splash. It’s the best kind of chaos.
The boy loves to help cook. So, while one parent is trying to clean the children and stay dry (can’t be done), the other is cleaning the kitchen.
Tonight’s special was chocolate leaf water served with a queso hamburger. Or, put more plainly, a cup of wet brown leaves that had been extracted from the salad spinner alongside a blue fly swatter. The boy used all his creativity on the beverage and then threw a fly swatter at me, told me it was a queso hamburger, and called it a day.
Once both boys are out of the bath, we’re in man-to-man defense. The better half typically takes the baby (coward), and I take the boy.
We start by fighting over what he can and can’t watch. Spoiler alert: he can never watch anything. But the Olympics set a dangerous precedent that I’m still working to unwind. I do not regret letting him watch cross country skiing with me though (Klaebo!).
At some point every night, the center of our home becomes a four-lane highway in all directions.
The boy to the kitchen. The better half to the baby. Me to the living room. One child wants peanut butter. Another wants a pacifier (it’s right next to your face!). And both parents are constantly crossing paths trying to meet these wants.
I’ve walked into the baby’s room holding a spoonful of peanut butter more than once.
Eventually, it gets quiet. And we sit down on our respective couches.
Then the dog smashes her paw against her water bowl sending it clattering across the kitchen, and we both realize that we forgot she was even here.
So we play rock, paper, scissors to see who has to get up to get her water, and I win every time.
Then the boy comes back asking for water/milk/a car/a blanket/nothing, and the better half throws scissors before the game even starts and I’m back in his bedroom, fumbling around in the dark for a red car that neither of us can see.
And then he gets in bed, pulls his car under the blanket, then grabs my neck and whispers, “Dad, did you like my chocolate leaf water?”
And I say yes, and he says it’s ok if I drink the rest while he sleeps.
And while I love the generosity, what ultimately fills my cup is that he has just admitted that he will, after all, sleep.
Praise.
Thanks for reading this far.
- jd
And also…
Love Story is a good show across the board, but the last 40ish minutes of the most recent episode were fantastic. Especially when you watch the real footage of the events the show portrays. Fun stuff.
Harry Styles on the cover of Runner’s World is H.O.T.
I’m probably oversubscribed to email newsletters, but the ones I leave unread until I find time to read them are Rachel Karten, Derek Thompson, Adam Tarnow, and Kyle Porter. The have almost nothing in common but I’d recommend them all.
I have a great job.
