I realized something startling this morning.
As Leah related the story of Sam walking into the twins’ room at 5:30am and ROARING at the top of his lungs, I realized that he has the ability to create contingency plans.
When Sam wakes up every morning just before the sun rises, he wants company. Usually, neither Leah nor I can drag ourselves out of bed to provide said company. This does not please my son. Typically, he expresses his displeasure by climbing on the bed and throwing himself down on top of me multiple times. If I don’t get up, at least he has taken some measure of enjoyment out of it, as Jumping On Daddy is his favorite game.
If, on any given day, Sam’s displeasure with Mommy & Daddy reaches warning levels, he resorts to what I will now call Alternate Plan A. Alternate Plan A consists of Sam making sufficient noise, either playing with music-generating toys (created by Satan himself) or running large trucks up and down the hallway, to force us to get out of bed and redirect his efforts before the twins wake up.
If Alternate Plan A does not meet with success, or Sam’s tolerance is particularly low, he will enact Alternate Plan B. In Plan B, Sam resorts to direct engagement of the babies. He will walk into their room and talk to them until they wake up. My Little Patton knows that when the twins wake up, they cry. Thus, Mommy & Daddy wake up also. I can tell when Alternate Plan B is in action from the absolute silence that ensues just before the crying starts – the calm before the storm.
This morning, Alternate Plan C came into being. I like Alternate Plan C, as it combines some of the most successful aspects of all his other morning military exercises.
Sam awoke at 0-Dark-Early, thanks to a toddler sized bladder, and woke Leah to tell her that he had to pee. The announcement is merely a formality now, as he goes by himself. Leah managed to drag herself to his room, where, to her surprise, he was not located. She waited, heard the previously mentioned ROAR, and when Sam came tearing back down the hallway into his room, asked him what he did.
“I scarin’ the babies, Mommy.”
Luckily, Aidan & Noah drifted back to sleep, and Leah miraculously negotiated Sam back into bed, enjoying another hour’s worth of blissful slumber.
Later, he came to visit me for a few minutes, jumping gleefully on Daddy. Soon after, we heard the silence that is usually associated with Plan B, but no crying followed. Strange. Leah got up and went into the living room. Sam had turned on the TV and was watching the morning news.
