Tag: son

Snow Day

In the same way

As the heat is leeched from our bones,

So, too, is the colour bleached from our environs,

The landscape reduced to stark monotones,

A canvas of whites and grays,

Upon which the bright rainbow

Of my son’s joy and wonderment

Stands out with such vivaciousness;

Bleeding life out into the world

That lies as cold as the grave.

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Dad Thoughts #12

Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

Two introverts decide to have a child. It’s exhausting and confusing and has a steep learning curve but eventually the child learns to sleep through the night and goes to daycare and stops being a constant drain on their emotional resources.

So what do they do?

Decide to have a second one, of course.

Two kids hits different. Two kids in the middle of a global pandemic hits very different, and hard.

But even without a hugely transmissible and deadly virus running amok, having two children, two boys, was a whole different level of tiring and hard that I just wasn’t expecting.

It doesn’t help that, even at 14 months, Milo is still not sleeping through the night. He will invariably wake up at least once, but more likely twice during the course of the night. We’ve tried letting him “cry it out”, but the problem with that is that he shares a room with Thomas, who very much does not enjoy having a screaming (and I mean screaming) toddler disturb his sleep.

So this means, ultimately one or the other of them ends up spending the night in our bed. Which means that neither myself or Megan have had a decent nights sleep in months.

(That’s not entirely true; there’s been a few nights where we’ve been able to fob off one or both of the boys to their grandparents. Last night was one such evening and it was the most undisturbed and fulfilling sleeps I’ve had since Milo was born.)

Couple this with Megan having to be home with Milo all the time (due to pandemic), and it’s been rough.

Thankfully we started Milo at daycare this September, which has been some relief during the day (for Megan, mostly. I just bugger off to work most days and that’s my reprieve)

Unfortunately, daycare brings its own trials and tribulations, namely an almost constant rotation of illness. Milo has had four ear infections in less than 6 months; not to mention the usual coughs and sniffles that toddlers seem to accrue by virtue of being Very Bad at hygiene. Which means the rest of us have been sick in one fashion or another since September also. I’m pretty sure I’ve had RSV at least twice this fall.

So combine lack of sleep, constant sickness and just general anxiety about, y’know… *gestures vaguely at everything* and, well..:

Some days I feel like there’s barely enough of me left to pull together and function. I’m getting behind on chores; the house is a disaster. I’m pretty sure our house could qualify for FEMA assistance at this point.

And forget about being creative. Even writing Haiku right now feels like too much, let alone trying to write a story or do art. Hence my lack of blog updates this past two or three months. (Did anyone notice? Answers on a post-card.)

It’s not exactly making me a great parent either. I feel like I’m constantly losing my rag at Thomas. Ironically, Milo is much more agreeable most days. He’s at that stage where he can’t quite talk, but he can communicate, and say a few key words, and he can understand simple directions, so will happily do something if you ask him to. He loves to dance to music and he loves to watch Sesame Street. He loves getting to go outside. And he’s finally getting into books, even if it’s the same ones over and over (and over and over…)

And him and Thomas get along for the most part, although there’s usually competition when it comes to snuggles with Mum.

(And, of course, Megan has it far tougher than I do. At least I can get away most days.)

I just need the dang kid to sleep through the night. All I want for Christmas is uninterrupted sleep! My Kingdom for undisturbed slumber!!

I love my boys. I do.

But hot damn am I struggling with being a Dad right now.

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