Myles

I'm going to invest a few sentences in my husband, right here at the beginning. Justin has been so great about sending me to yoga, even when it means, most of the time, that he is stuck with at least part of what I like to call Operation: Bedtime.
There have been a couple of times that I have come home from yoga right at the wrong time: All the kids are in bed and none are asleep. This means that I immediately end up tasked with getting Myles to sleep. This, in and of itself, is not bad. It's part of the job. Sure, the timing sucks, and that's why tonight, exiting the yoga studio at 8:15 p.m., I sent Justin a text asking if it was safe to return home.
I didn't get an answer to my text, but that is a topic for another day.
I came home, I even dawdled outside in the driveway, but as I climbed the stairs Justin informed me, "Myles isn't sleeping".
The child may be small but he wasn't born yesterday and even if he didn't hear me (I am soooo stealthy), he heard his Dad talking to someone else and extrapolated. And can you believe, when Myles came out of the boys' room and ran to Justin, sitting and playing stupid computer games, I heard Justin rat me out. "She's in the kitchen," I believe he said.
So, dinner would be for...later.
There is no mistaking the footfalls of a toddler. Well hell, nobody else's legs are that short. I hope.
As of late, Myles has been...gifted? plagued? Hmm. Consider the source. According to him, he's been gifted with the ability to function nearly always normally on an abnormally small amount of sleep. Counter to that, his father and I have been plagued by 10:30 p.m. bedtimes and a perky small person before 7:00 a.m.
It's not as though the child is disagreeable. The child is adorable. Yes, I'm his mother - but hang out with him for 24 hours and then tell me otherwise. I dare you.
He is a child who understands that he IS up past his bedtime and therefore, it is in his best interest to not piss anyone off. He ratchets out the cutest maneuvers for our benefit, smiling slyly as he most surely does the tacit Snidely Whiplash cackle, "My plan is working!" He makes his Daddy laugh and then he knows, he has struck gold and no ill will befall him. His Daddy will go to sleep (abandoning Mommy) and Myles will go to sleep whenever the hell he sees fit.
He is still hanging on to that bit of babyhood that allows him to be the boss, no matter what. I'm not sure that I can blame him.
And thankfully, he is agreeable: He waits cheerfully while I reheat leftover pasta (though I would have preferred something greener); he amuses me with casual banter while I resign myself to a night that is less productive than I had hoped.
Just today, he has started responding to questions in the affirmative with, "yes", and I mean a very clearly enunciated, decisive, "yes". This little linguistic sniggle will disappear, even quickly (ask me how I know) and so I want to ask him as many questions as I can to which the answer might be 'yes', just for the joy in hearing him say it.
Since he has been able to talk, when he wants me to hold him he extends his arms up towards me and says, "Help you! Help you!" I know, at this point, that he knows better: He knows that he is "I" or "me" and that the verb in question is "hold", and yet he persists. And this is perhaps because I crater every time. Never mind his obsession with my boobies. Never before has any male declared so frequently, "I love your boobies SOOOO much!!"
Justin did go to bed. The wind is whipping, quite unlike San Diego, outside. Myles and I re-reheated my pasta and we sat on the sofa to watch the DVR'd "House" from earlier in the evening. It can be difficult to let go, agitated by the undone mundane and tiresome, considering the kitchen that will have to be cleaned tomorrow and the laundry that will be done...tomorrow? and I must consciously shove myself into this mind space where I relax and sit with my child.
He was so easy and so quiet and I start to think that maybe I am like a drug to him and he just didn't get his fix today. But the calmer and quieter I become, I start thinking that maybe he is a drug to me and he is there, awake, heavy on my lap because I need him to stop me, or at least slow me down.
We sat and we watched "House". I feel marginally guilty for pouring this televisual bullshit into my kid's subconscious. His eyelids fell and his body was relaxed, the both of us curved together sitting on the couch. His head fell away from me and I kissed his neck and I can't describe what he smells like. He smells like time stopping. He smells like everything being worth it. He smells like mine.
Finally, I did go put him down, after I had lost all motivation to clean the kitchen or do laundry or anything else that is in my job description. I went to put him down and I was sorry that I had to do it. Sorry, because he will never be this little again. Because he is my last baby. I told him in his sleeping ear how much I love him.
The wind still blows, rattling the old windows. The children sleep. The husband sleeps. And yay for me, maybe I will write again tomorrow.