The things I don’t do for my kids. This morning we had to go have a GIEP meeting for Baboo. We’ve had one for Dan every year he’s been in school, but I’ve never gotten a single request that’s asked us to be there before 9:30 am. The original invitation asked us to come to Baboo’s school at 7:45. What? Were they kidding? We don’t even put Dan on the bus until eight, or I should say Cleetus doesn’t. I don’t get up until ten…usually. No, I had to send that invitation back with the time amended to 8:15, explaining the bus situation and omitting the “damn it, I don’t get up that early!” thing.
When the boys were younger we both got up with them. That’s what great parents do, right? Ha ha ha, no, to be honest, it took both of us to wrangle them in the mornings and get their little butts out the door. In those years, Cleetus either worked day shift or third shift, so he was either getting up for work himself, or just coming home, and I had little trouble keeping up with that schedule. Okay, I may have had some trouble, but it was necessary for both of us to be up because the boys went to different schools. Cleetus had to be out the door with Baboo to catch his bus while I got Dan together and the two of us waited here for his bus. It worked out. And later in the day, I could always head off to Napalot.
And then Cleetus started working second shift. Now, for anyone who may not know, second shift is kinda shit for a dude with kids in school. You leave for work just as they’re getting home from school, and get home after they’re in bed. No supper with the family, no “How was your day?” no “Hey, I don’t know that crap, ask your dad.” on the homework front, and not only was it hard for the kids, it was hard on Cleetus. He’s been there for everything. In fact, he’s been there for more than I have–spelling bees, doctor appointments, play practice, while I was caring for my mom he was the available parent during the day. And I don’t want to brag, but I’m gonna just a little, he’s never missed a meeting or a parent/teacher conference for either of our kids, something I’ve been complimented on like it’s my doing. I don’t quite get that because the credit is all his, but I consider that those compliments always came from moms who were waiting in that hallway alone, and I see they just wish their husbands could be there.
So, with the change of hours, I began to stay up later making it even harder for me to get up in the morning. Complicating matters was the fact that mom was quite active at night, sometimes I got to sleep, sometimes I didn’t. Cleetus pops out of bed at five am like a rooster, regardless. He may go back to sleep later, but he reliably wakes up in the morning. I do not. One day he just stopped waking me. I cannot tell you how much I appreciated it. It seemed fair to me. The mornings would be his time with the boys, and who was I to interfere with that? Heh! I still have the homework Dan doesn’t want to do and the supper he doesn’t want to eat, but, at least, I don’t have to rise at the crack of dawn, FFS!
Until today. And just knowing I had to get up at seven made it damn near impossible to sleep last night. I was still up channel surfing at 2:30 am. I was awake past that, but I had turned everything off and burrowed down like I was serious about sleeping. yeah, that always works…lol. So there I am at Baboo’s GIEP meeting on less than three hours sleep. Thank the Deity it was Baboo and not Dan, whose IEPs are complex and usually need to be haggled over with a room full of people. No, it was just Cleetus, me and Baboo’s gifted support teacher, who we like a lot. Why wouldn’t we, he tells us fantastic things about our son. Still, I am not a morning person, those scores in Baboo’s present levels? They looked great, but they would have looked just as great at 10:30 and through eyes that didn’t have lids that felt like sandpaper.
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