Reentry

Don’t let Nate’s sparkly blue eyes in this picture fool you. Since returning home from vacation, he is not so sparkly eyed. Or really all that happy to adjust to Central Time Zone. Let alone this whole “spring forward” nonsense.
Because he’s still living on Pacific Time, he’s gotten into the habit of sleeping in until 10 every morning. For a family who is always up before the sun, this sleeping-all-morning habit has been sort of a novelty for us. We’ve let him sleep because Nate is a bear to wake up, which means that letting him sleep the morning away is the obvious path of least resistance (always my favorite path). So, even though we’ve been home from vacation for five days, we’ve managed to let our teenager toddler sleep in.
Unti this morning.
This morning was one of those when everyone slept in way too late. M assumed I was driving all the kids to school, which was an unfortunate miscommunication since I was running around in my pjs like a lunatic trying to get all the kids ready so HE could drive them to school. And if I drove the kids to school, I would have to wake up Nate, who would be surly and mean to me.
But since M has a job that pays him real cash dollars to show up everyday, I lost the “who will drive the kids?” standoff, and I rushed into my room to throw on a tshirt and jogging pants that were really just another form of my pajamas.
While the big kids (all sort-of still on Pacific Time themselves) wandered around the house munching on frozen pancakes (I did microwave them, just to be clear), and muttering about their shoes, I went in to wake up Nate.
I don’t know what it would be like to wake up a hibernating bear, but I’m guessing it would be easier than trying to stir Nate from his warm, cozy bed. As I carried the sleeping, pajama-clad, soggy-diapered Nate down the stairs, he started to wake up.
And scream. And scream some more. And hit me.
I set the screaming Nate onto the kitchen floor so 1) he would stop hitting me and 2) I could help Sam solve the “where are my shoes this morning?” mystery. After shooing the kids into the car, I turned around to pick up Nate.
Where was Nate?
Sure enough, he was back in his bed. Not only had he climbed the steps, but he was asleep again! So, we repeated the horrible walk/hitting down the steps. This time I headed for the car because we were already ten minutes late and if Nate wasn’t buckled into his chair, we’d keep playing this not-fun game of going up and down the steps.
Trying to get Nate into the car was one of those moments that makes me laugh now–it was like a cartoon. He grabbed every door jamb we passed, screaming, “I STAY HERE WITH THE DOGS!” “I STAY HERE! I BE OKAY BY MYSELF! I WANT TO SLEEP”
Me too, buddy. Me too.
The screaming didn’t end until we got back home and he went back into bed.
He came downstairs a couple minutes ago with a big grin on his face. “I’m okay now, Mommy. I sleep.”
We had a long-ish chat about never ever hitting me again.
He agreed, which is suspicious since I’m pretty sure he had no idea what I was saying.
I guess we’ll see tomorrow morning when I try to wake him up.
Unless of course, I take the path of least resistance and let him sleep in.