Irrational Four-Year Old Watch

Tuesday
Max woke up, inexplicably, at three in the morning. Not, like, fell out of bed and cried woke up, like ready to go milk the cows woke up. First Leah, then I, tried to convince him to go back to sleep, so maybe we're the irrational ones. He looked out the window and announced, "It's light out." One of the great things about kids is that they can take an expression like, "He's so contrary that if I said the sky was blue, he'd say it wasn't," and make it into a real thing to argue about. Four crackers and about two hours (five a.m.!) later, he went back to sleep.

Today
We are trying to get Max to sleep through the night without needing a diaper. He is fine during the day, but night is a challenge. We've been waking him up at 11 or so, which is funny because he pees without waking up, and is completely floppy and sometimes says hilarious things, like, "Dad, how come we're outside now?" But it is not the way to go, long term. So we let him try it on his own and, lo and behold, he made it. But then, when he woke up, arguably having gone longer without peeing than at any other time in his life, he refused to acknowledge that he needed to go to the bathroom and refused to go. He managed to hold it in until it was time to leave for school at 8:30, about two hours after he woke up, and then he peed on the hostas, declaring, "Oh, I love to pee outside!"

Abe, on the go

Abe is moving on two feet and more dangerous than ever. He yanks himself up on this little cart and scoots across the kitchen. But he can't turn, so he crashes hard into the dishwasher or table, then yells until we turn him.

Occasionally he gets really lucky and runs over Max, at which point he can let go of the cart and drool on Max. Walking is Abe's white whale, and we believe that he is trying to fuse himself to his brother so he can get going, cartless.

Max is less than enthused. Perhaps this is why he awoke last night at 3 am, claiming, in that delightfully irrational 4-year old way, that it was day time. He demanded breakfast and, incongruously for daytime, stories. We obliged, and before I hear any, "Boy, if I had done that to your parents, my dad would have told me to...," remember that you can go jump in a lake. We negotiate with terrorists if it might mean going back to bed quickly.

Like all such gunboat diplomacy, this approach carries with it the risk of exquisite failure, and that's what we had last night. I pity his teachers when he realizes he is short about 3 hours of sleep. At least Abe got enough sleep to put him in a good mood.