Carried Away

Someone likes to pretend she’s asleep in the car when we get home.

Someone likes to be carried up to bed.

Someone thinks Dad can’t tell she’s faking.

Someone thinks she’s a pretty good faker.

But Dad knows.

He knows she gets heavier every time.

He knows any day now she won’t want to be carried anymore.

Dad plays along and carries her, heavy, up all those stairs.

Every step, he wonders if this is the last time he’ll get to carry his tiny girl.

She feels like she’s getting away with it.

He feels her getting away.

Home Worked Up

4 pm
Me: “Welcome home from school! Any homework tonight?”
Child: “Nope! I don’t have homework today!”

5 pm
Me: “Looks like you’re having fun. If you have homework, you could do it now.”
Child: “Nope! I don’t have homework today!”

6 pm
Me: “Almost dinner time. If you have homework now would be a nice, calm time to do it.”
Child: “Nope! I don’t have homework today!”

7 pm
Me: “Getting late. You should do any homework you might have.”
Child: “Nope! I don’t have homework today!”

8 pm
Me: “OK, bed time. Last chance to do homework.”
Child: “Nope! I don’t have homework today!”
Me: “Really? Are you sure? You really don’t have homework?”
Child: “Nope! I don’t have homework today!”
Me: “OK, let’s get you tucked in for the night.”

8:22 pm
Me: “Why are you back downstairs? I already tucked you in.”
Child: “I just remembered I have homework. If I don’t turn it in tomorrow, I have to repeat the fifth grade. Oh, and we need sixteen pounds of sugar, a handmade broccoli costume, twenty-seven strings of yellow Xmas lights, and a live moose.”

We’ve Never Not Had Kids

Wonderful Wife: “Good morning, dear. Be warned, we have kids in the bed who may or may not be about to…”

Little Miss Thing, age 7: “CANNONBALL!!!”

(jumps onto my middle)

Me: “Oof. What a way to wake up. Wait… who’s pulling my arm hair?”

Danger Monkey, age 10: “I’m not pulling your hair. I’m just hugging you… one hair at a time.”

Me: …

WW: “Well, honey, do you feel loved?”

Me: “I feel… a knee in my spleen.”

WW: “Same thing.”

Me: “I’m pretty sure morning snuggles are supposed to be calm and loving.”

WW: “Are you sure? Have you checked the manual lately?”

LMT: “I think that was how snuggles were before you had kids.”

Me: “We’ve never not had kids.”