Tuesday morning was a pretty rough start. I wrote several weeks ago about how we’ve been working on Henry’s sleep, which is something that’s been an issue with him since the beginning. We saw some really good progress and for the past few weeks it’s generally been quite a bit better, but Monday night into Tuesday morning was one of those stretches where he was waking up ever hour or two, and so were Mom and Dad.
I’m not a sleep scientist or anything, but I do know that not being asleep for longer than 2 hours at a time isn’t good. Something about REM, which is a great band, but I think not a great connotation in this case.
But somehow my overall fogginess seemed less bad than it had been the previous day. Maybe it was that new coffee maker. The work day was generally going OK, and after what was probably Henry’s 432nd request for a snack that morning, I finally said, “sure” and he was off to the pantry downstairs. I suddenly heard a loud crash and the inevitable words, “Uh OH!”
We have these glass bowls for the kids that are extremely durable, until they aren’t. They are tough and all survived a little abuse, but when they break, they BREAK. There were tiny shards of broken glass all over the living room floor, and probably as far away as Nantucket.
The good news is that now we’ve officially broken all but one of that set, so I’ll just have one more cleanup left.
After dinner, Erin introduced the kids to our fancy Advent calendar, which she had placed some chocolate coins in. Amelia kept thinking it was some kind of game where they had to find where the chocolate was, and was somewhat disappointed when she found out that it’s a numerical progression. So the first day is 1, the second day is 2, and so on. Where’s the challenge in that? But there is chocolate, so that is something.
The day was otherwise without note, really. I sat up late to do a little writing and also took a moment to watch a short film on Disney Plus. It’s called Float, and honestly, I suggest anyone that has 9 minutes and access to this streaming service should check it out. I saw someone post about it in a social media group I joined for the dads of Autistic kids. The film was written and directed by a man who has a son on the Autism spectrum, and whether or not you have child on the spectrum, it is moving, beautiful and manages to capture so much of the emotional experience of it all.
It’s about a dad who finds out his baby can fly, and everyone looks on with puzzlement and fear. He spends years trying to protect his son by hiding him and his abilities, but ultimately learns that he is taking away one of the things that makes his son beautiful.
There is a nice write up about it here, but seriously, check it out and let me know what you think. It made me cry, I will not lie. The kind of cry where I was smiling at the same time. And I think all parents can relate. All kids are different and all kids are special. We try so hard to shepherd them in the ways we think are normal or “right,” but sometimes we have to remind ourselves that our primary goal is to help them fly.
