For my sins, I have never been a good sleeper. The interior of my skull is a noisy place, and it is seldom that I am able to ignore the noise sufficiently to put together 8 contiguous hours of sleep. From a child-rearing point of view, this is fantastic, because every parent in the world has entered into the unwritten agreement with their children that sleep is a thing of the past, banished to the same realm as dinner in quiet restaurants and furniture not decorated with brown handprints. While my son is not as bad as some of the protagonists of horror stories I have heard from friends and colleagues, when he decides sleep is simply not part of his schedule, he certainly sticks to that decision.
Never was this more evident than the recent holiday I took with my wife
and son to the majestic Natal Midlands.
For my wife and I, this was to be four days of bliss in (Relative)
silence in a cottage in the middle of nowhere.
For my 2-year-old son Ricky, however, this was a whole new set of shit
to climb on and break and explore and drag into the house and put in his mouth
and break some more. I have never seen
him as turnt up as he was during this holiday, and his normally endless
reservoir of energy seemed even more endless, like some ungodly perpetual
motion machine. You would think that all
that activity would tucker him out, but no sirree, when bedtime rolled around
the little bugger was just as amped as ever.
It became clear from the first night that the strange surroundings and
endless daytime play were not going to lend themselves to Ricky being content
to sleep on his own. And given that
night time has always been Daddy time for Ricky – My wife gratefully turns the
night shift over to me, since I am usually awake anyway – It was clear that, in
order to get Ricky remotely near anything resembling sleep, I would have to
share a room with him.
We had rented a cottage for our stay – Allow me to insert a plug for
Caversham Mill, the wonderful destination that put us up and put up with us,
here. If nothing else, you have to eat
in their fantastic restaurant – and had set Ricky up in the second biggest of
the three bedrooms. Luckily, the bed was
a rather large queen-size, and thus there would be ample room for me to bunk
down with my favourite hooligan.
But while I thought I was just in for three nights of somewhat broken
sleep, my son had other ideas. In his
mind, these here nights were to be a live interview for his future career as a
professional wrestler, with Daddy playing the role of jobber (The guy who’s
paid to lose)
Night One saw Ricky wake up in the middle of the night and notice that
there was a mirror on the door of the cupboard at the foot of the bed. This prompted what felt like a three-hour
session of peek-a-boo with his reflection, with Ricky stacking the duvet to
form a barricade to peek over. The game
only stopped when Daddy stomped over and opened the cupboard door enough to
obscure the mirror. By then, though,
sleep was a distant memory, and the remainder of the night featured Ricky
jabbing Daddy in the ribs constantly, alternating use of his head and feet for
maximum efficacy. (Daddy must note at
this point that Ricky was the only person who had ever shared a room with Daddy
that found Daddy’s farts funny, and this did endear him as a roommate despite
the bruised ribs the next morning)
Night Two saw the debut of what will no doubt be my son’s finishing
move when he does indeed take up a career in the squared circle: The Diving Somersault Kick to the Face. We need to give this move a catchy name, but
for now let’s call it the Flipstomp.
(Hey, it’s stupid, but it’s better than
“Ow, f*ck!! No, Ricky, man!!”,
which is the first name I came up with for it)
Ricky landed two picture-perfect Flipstomps during the course of the
night, but in fairness there may have been more that Daddy simply slept through
due to utter exhaustion. In addition,
Ricky would also climb out of bed and sprint around to Daddy’s side in order to
climb over Daddy and return to his previous position. (Daddy has long been considered the best
obstacle to climb, and if my son ever takes up Boot Camp fitness training, he’s
going to be sorely disappointed by the lack of fat old white guys to clamber
over)
Night Three was relatively calm, as Ricky may have been approaching
some sort of homeostasis. It did see the
return of an old favourite, the “jam both feet into the small of Daddy’s back
and push as hard as you can” move that was previously used to great effect
during daytime naps with Daddy. But it
also saw Ricky startle awake from a dream and then burrow his face furtively
into Daddy’s shoulder before falling asleep again, melting Daddy’s heart and
reminding him why he loves Ricky so much in the first place.
As parents, we need to cherish moments like this because, before you
know it, your son is eighteen and hates you because you won’t let him move to
Vancouver with a stripper named Cherry Blossom.
(“But Dad, we’re in love!!!”) So, three nights of poor sleep and consistent
punishment culminating in one perfect moment of father-son bonding? Totally worth it, and a trade I make one
hundred times out of one hundred.
For my sins, I have never been a good sleeper. But for any good deeds I may have done, I got
to spend three nights bunking with a little boy who still thinks I’m his hero.
I’d call that a holiday well spent.
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