Wednesday, February 24, 2010

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A fundraising conference was hosted in Tampa this week so I had clients and colleagues in town. Instead of me traveling to them all of them traveled to me. That was a nice change of pace. Yesterday I spent the day at the conference and had lunch with some clients and then took a prospective client out to dinner to try to woo them into becoming one of my own. Since I was out late I didn't get a chance to see Quentin after saying our morning good-byes. My dinner went well, so I was happy to come home and share the events with Carrie. Quentin was of course fast asleep. As we were heading off to bed I picked up the monitor to take a look at the little rascal before hitting the sack and he was sleeping in tripod fashion. He was totally balanced on his forehead with his butt up in the air, essentially standing on his legs. I just figured this can't be comfortable so I set out to lay him down properly, cover him up and say good night. Carrie warned me not to do it. She said he'll wake up but I was confident I could sneak in there and push him down without him being any wiser.

Well, it turns out wifey knows best. I was ninja quiet entering the room, picked up the blanket and with Swiss watch making preciseness gently laid the blanket on top of him. In a flash he jumped up and I immediately realized why he was sleeping in the tripod formation. It was exactly for this moment. He sleeps that way so he can spring upon you like a cat waiting for its prey. He pounced on me. It was dark I thought I could blend into the darkness of the room. I was in a dark suit. I froze. Seconds seemed liked hours. I thought there is no way he spotted me. I must have nearly got caught, but still escaped. But no, my watch dog kid totally busted me. The water works came on in full force. "Why won't you hold me? Why are you imprisoning me in this crib? How come you don't love me?" he wailed. I tried the goodnight I love you approach but to no avail. The crying started at 10:30 pm. It was still going on at 1:30 AM even after numerous visits to comfort him. We brought him into bed with us as a last resort. Anything to hit the sack. Q is religiously getting up between 4:30-5 AM every single morning so to still be up at 1:30 AM and knowing our human alarm clock is going to actually get up at 5 AM at the latest thrusts an enormous amount of stress and anxiety upon you as you ponder how you will get through tomorrow's work day on three hours of sleep.

He's swimming in the bed. We have a giant bed, but it's not big enough for our son. At 2:30 I give up and take refuge in my man-room and let the real man of the house have three quarters of the bed as Carrie is now a refugee on the remaining quarter. I wake up in my Bucky Badger chair, because of course any self respecting man room would have one, around 3:30 am and listen intently to see if I can hear the throws of lightest sleeper in the world still tossing and turning. I find I have the TV tuned to black and white WWII coverage. I still love history, even at 3 am. I sneak back downstairs (notice the irony of dad banished to upstairs and child laying claim to adult downstairs) and climb into bed. Guess what? Q got up at 4:30 AM. Unbelievable. He was ready to go to like he had just gotten 12 hours. I don't think I am going to survive this child. Even the dog bolted out of the room and hid out in the bathroom all night trying to catch some Z's. It's quite disturbing but I actually find myself jealous of the dog sometimes in that he sleeps all day and can find R & R corners in our house when I, well I just can't. You really shouldnt' be envious of your dog.

We had a few left over Christmas presents so we gave Quinny one the other night - a basketball hoop. Here he is for the first time learning to shoot.

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