Monday Morning

I’m roused from sleep by the sound of Evan waking fitfully in his bed beside me. Without opening my eyes I know it’s still dark, impossibly early, too early to start the day. Yet I also know that’s exactly what’s about to happen. I was up too late again working the night before, meeting a deadline I had gotten extended once already. Then I was up twice with Evan, the last time around 3:30 a.m.

He turns over, whimpering, revving up for a full-on cry. I bury my head in the covers, not wanting to accept my fate. Maybe if I just lie here very still, Evan will fall back to sleep.

What time is it? I wonder.

Just then Chris’s alarm clock goes off, and I curse silently. I hear the monotone NPR newscaster rolling through his morning news brief and I know it’s 5:45 a.m. Chris moves and sighs and I swear again, knowing the creak of the mattress springs and the radio and the ruffling of sheets is not helping the cause of willing Evan to drift back to dreamland on his own.

He starts to cry, and suddenly my goal of staying cozied up beneath the down comforter in a haze of sleep is trumped by a new, way more important goal — Make Sure Evan Doesn’t Wake Kostyn.

I scoop up Evan from his Pack-n-Play and bury him in the bed beside me. “Shhhhhhhhh, shh shh shh shh,” I hiss into his ear, kissing his cheek frantically and fumbling for his pacifier, trying to get him to focus on something other than his own need to be heard.

He stops crying almost instantly, which is fantastic, but his eyes are now wide open. This means he’s ready to start his day. He pulls the pacifier out of his mouth and starts babbling, cooing, in love with the sound of his own voice, and I find it both impossibly cute and totally unnerving.

“Daaaaaaaa.....wuuuaaaaahhhhh........wuuuuaaaahhhhh....” he croaks, eyes wide, as I shush him half-heartedly and Chris turns over and smiles.

In the other room, Kostyn starts to whine. I curse audibly. It’s 5:48 a.m.

“I’ll go get him and bring him in here,” Chris says, and although I know that’s better than me having to get up and feel the early morning chill on my bare shoulders, it still pisses me off. I’m mad that my day never starts on my terms. I’m mad that my kids never sleep in. I’m mad.

Chris reappears a minute later carrying Kostyn, who’s whining and wiggling and doesn’t know what he wants. He deposits his older son beside his younger son, moving his own pillow sideways to create a bit of a border between Kostyn and the edge of the bed.

Then he’s gone, and I spend the next 30 minutes under a dark cloud of jealousy as I hear Chris going about his morning routine. I’m jealous that he gets to stand in the shower for as long as he wants, no door left open to hear a baby’s cry, no toddler running in to open the shower curtain and get water all over the floor. I’m jealous that he gets to sit in peace at the table and sip his coffee and read the newspaper uninterrupted by a hungry baby or a dirty diaper or “More Cheerios Mama?” while I’m in bed getting my hair pulled by a 6-month-old and my face kicked by a 2-year-old.

It makes no sense in the light of day, knowing that he’d give anything to trade places, to stay home with them, to soak up our early morning ritual of tangled bodies and yawns and hand-holding in Mama’s bed.

But there is very little that’s rational in my brain at 5:50 a.m. So as I lay there feeling the impossibly soft skin of my boys, hearing Kostyn sigh and Evan coo, watching Evan reach for Kostyn and Kostyn admonish his brother — “No baby, no hair! Not!” — I am unable to soak up the moment for what it is. Which is perfect.

After several minutes of Evan grabbing and Kostyn flailing, I realize they cannot be next to each other, so I scoot Evan over to my nice warm spot, wedge myself between them, and try to get comfortable lying on my stomach with no pillow and somehow trying to face both of them. This is ridiculously futile. It’s a queen-sized bed, but when you factor in the wall of pillows on both sides of the bed there isn’t much wiggle room left for two wiggly little ones and one overtired mom.

We should all just get up, I think. This is stupid. It’s not like there’s a chance in hell of any of us falling back to sleep. Dawn is breaking, the room is slowly getting lighter, and I’m waiting for the first of many times Kostyn will ask to “Watch some TV?”

But he doesn’t. He flips over onto his belly, his diapered bottom up in the air, grabs my hand and closes his eyes. This is an astounding turn of events. I lie there very still while Evan pulls my hair and caresses my shoulder and tries to yank on my shirt.

I close my eyes. Evan keeps talking. Please, please just be quiet. I think about trying to leave with Evan, to get out from under the covers, in the middle of the bed, without waking Kostyn. There’s no way.

“Daaaaaaaa...” Evan says. I’m mad and jealous and tired and irrational.

And then, somehow, I open my eyes and things are different. Quiet. I can see the brightness beaming in from the corners of the curtains. I lift my head to peer over a sleeping Kostyn at the clock. 8:16 a.m. I turn to Evan. He’s staring at me. When our eyes meet, he grins.

I reach over and caress his cheek and he grabs my hand and tries to chew on my knuckles. A few minutes later Kostyn stirs, rolls over and sits up.

“I luff you, Mama,” he says, smiling. “Good morning!”

Great morning.