Diggers And Toast

I wake up at about 5:15 every morning on workdays. I like to capture at least a little morning time to myself, so the trick is to get up before Liam wakes up. It usually doesn’t happen. Liam can be in a deep sleep but he seems to have this extra sense. No matter how quietly I get up and no matter how seemingly dead to the world he is, he springs right up with one thing and one thing only on his mind:

Diggers.

I made the mistake once of showing him some You Tube videos of construction equipment and now it has become an obsession. He can sit and watch diggers, bulldozers, cranes, dump trucks, etc. for as long as we let him. And if we don’t let him, it sounds something like this: “Diggers? Diggers? Diggers? Diggers? I want diggers. Diggers? Diggers? Diggers? Hot dog? I want diggers. Diggers? Diggers? Diggers? Diggers? Diggers? Diggers?”
“Oh, you want diggers.”
“Yeah.”

So when Liam throws this digger mantra at his pre-coffee dad, what starts as an extreme annoyance quickly becomes an opportunity to grab a little “me” time as I pull out the laptop and get him set up with the You Tube diggers. Once he is in front of his diggers with an eager grin on his face I can grab at least one cup of coffee before my day starts.

The other thing that is important for Liam in the morning is that he eats fairly soon after he wakes up. If we wait too long to feed him, even if he doesn’t act hungry, he can get extremely agitated. If he is wanting his diggers he will not eat, but if he is watching his diggers he will gladly eat while he’s watching. I usually make him some gluten free toast (his system can’t tolerate wheat or dairy) with peanut butter and jelly on it. This is how we start the day; Liam watching his diggers eating peanut butter and jelly toast and me slowly waking up with my coffee to the sound of working diggers on You Tube, delighted giggles, and incoherent comments about diggers digging.

As much as this makes for an easier morning, there are a few drawbacks. Liam can’t keep his hands off the computer while he is watching and he just starts pushing buttons that mess up the computer in ways I don’t understand, so I sometimes have to spend some time trying to undo whatever it is he just did while he is screaming “DIGGERS?!” repeatedly in my ear. It is hard to disengage him from the digger videos but usually with a little advanced warning such as “One more and then all done.” We can get on with our day. There is always peanut butter and jelly on my keyboard.

After coffee I can usually grab a quick shower and get ready to walk Chester while Liam is still watching diggers and eating. The next big task is getting Angie up so I can get the dog out the door. She is not a good getter upper. This I don’t understand. I always tell her “It’s like taking off a band aid. Do it quick and painless and once you’re up it’s great.” She clearly does not see the wisdom in my method as she makes the process as slow and painful as possible.

So walking Chester is another way of grabbing a little more of the morning for myself. In the winter it is still dark when I’m out and it is a really weird but strangely satisfying feeling to be out and about at this time.

I get about 30 minutes of dog walking and then I come back to my favorite scene: The computer is off, Angie is on the couch trying to drink coffee with Liam, jelly faced, snuggled up against her giggling softly, putting her hands on his face, and loving every minute of this precious snuggle time with his mommy. It is clear that mommy time far outweighs any draw the diggers may have had just minutes ago. Although Liam will follow me around the house all day wanting to do whatever I’m doing, I do not have the kind of snuggle appeal that Angie has. She can sit still with him and he can sit still with her and they can enjoy each other that way. If it’s Liam and me he always wants to be doing something active with me (if the diggers aren’t on), not sitting still. I don’t mind this for the most part. I like that he sees us differently. It is just more evidence that he is distinctively engaged with the world and understands the different nature of different relationships, whether the relationship is with Mommy, Daddy, Claire, Chester, or diggers.