Wake Up Calls

Um ... hello there.  Yes.  I haven't seen you in awhile.  I know, I know, it's my fault.  I've been remiss on this blog.

See, I was off on a little vacation visiting a certain mouse in Florida.  He's a great buddy of Toddler's and an old, old friend of mine.  Of course, he and his friends are the only mice I tolerate, as some of you might recall from my prior post, His Name Isn't Mickey So He Isn't Welcome Here, but tolerate him, I do.  I even stood in line for a whole 30 minutes so Toddler could see him ... twice ... and I usually don't stand in line for much of anything if I can help it.

Anyway, I am back and full of apologies for the extended absence.  I hope you will forgive me, because I have some stories to share. 

For those of you that have been reading this blog for awhile probably remember that I have an ... issue ... with mornings.  (I would link to a post, but I don't know as I could actually choose one out of the many in which I comment on the level of antagonism that I have with mornings.  I might have to go back and start a new blog label "Mornings" and just add it to my list of labels for you to peruse.  Yeah.  I'll add that to the list of things I need to do to improve this blog.  Maybe when Toddler is in college I'll get around to finishing it.)  I really can't think of a "good" alarm clock or wake-up call, but after spending 10 days sharing a variety of hotel rooms with my 3 year old, I have discovered a few wake-up calls that definitely fall into the "bad" category.

The fortunate part of our vacation was that traipsing through the Disney parks every day wore out Toddler, and he had taken to sleeping in a bit.  (What a relief to any family with small children.)  We decided we would just wait until he woke up, and no need to set and alarm to try to get to the parks when the gates opened.  Of course, any family members of mine reading this will think I have committed a sacriliege by even saying such a thing, much less doing it, but not really.  Sleeping in for Toddler usually means 7:30, and occasionally 8:00, so we were still up plenty early and got great parking spaces.

The unfortunate part of our vacation was that Toddler was exhausted, and he sometimes forgot to wake up when he really needed to. One morning, early in the week, Darling Husband and I woke up to the sound of Toddler rolling over and saying, "Uh, oh!!!!!"

In unison we said, "What's wrong?"

He replied, "I'm soaking wet!"

We both said, in unison again, "Oh, crap."

That, my friends, is not a good wake-up call.  And, when the child says "soaking wet," he was actually being quite modest, which is rather miraculous considering he did get up in the middle of the night to go potty.  For the second time, I had to call a hotel room front desk for an emergency sheet change.  I'm afraid I might be getting a reputation here.

On another morning, we woke up to hear Toddler whining in his bed.  Again, we asked him what was wrong, and he replied, "Help!  I need to get the poopies out!"

Again, my friends, this scenario is not a good wake up call.  No, no, no.

(I have to take a little aside here to observe that the "Potty Mouth Blogger" has struck again.  I'm seriously considering whether I should just give up and rebrand my blog that way.  At least, I should create a label for "potty stories," right?)

On the other hand, I did run into one wake up call that I found, while not pleasant, at least mildly amusing.  It involved Toddler silently slipping out of bed, coming to Darling Husband's side of the bed, and staring Darling Husband down in his sleep, waiting, waiting, waiting for Darling Husband to open his eyes.  When Darling Husband finally did open his eyes, Toddler let out  a little chuckle and then said ... (wait for it) ... "I need to go potty."  Heh.