Updates from a Temporarily Single Dad, Day 4

3 hours of sleep.  Ugh.  At what point is it not even worth it?  Well, 3 hours is still worth it in my book, so in bed at 4am, back up at 7am.
It's Monday morning, and Cosi needs to be at school by 830.
At 730, Cosi is awake, eating her Cocoa Wheats and getting dressed.  I endeavor to make her hair slightly more presentable than it has been the past few days.  I heard at least one comment yesterday that someone could tell that Daddy was doing Cosi's hair.
At 815 I pick Trey up from his slumber and put him in the car.  He is confused by this awakening, but that's not unusual for him.

By 840, Cosi is in class and Trey and I are back at the house.  We put some sheets in the washer (peed on, again), get breakfast (bread sticks temporarily forgotten, we both eat bagels), and rough house all over the living room.  Trey is not willing to let me out of his sight even for a second.  If I make a move towards another room, I hear his feet running and I hear him say "NOOO!  I have to catch UP!"  He then dives head first at the backs of my knees, grips my legs with both of his arms, and tries to pull me to the ground.  I guess he figures that, with my butt on the floor, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.  Despite April's (justifiable) fears, I think this boy may go out for football when he's older.

At some point in the morning, Trey freezes in his steps, spreads his legs, and looks at me with a mixed expression that is part shame, part relief, and part “I've got a funny secret."  It's the poop face.  But he's being potty trained, and so there's nothing to catch that poop except his PJs.  So down the leg of his pants it goes, which is the part he doesn't like.  The PJ pants are tight around the ankles, so anything that might theoretically fall down a pant leg gets trapped at the ankle.  The problem is, Trey runs away from me whenever this happens.  He runs, but he notices something doesn't feel right on one leg.

Ten minutes later, he's all cleaned, and I'm just glad that I didn't have to clean anything off the floor.  But then this reminds me that our comforter needs to be dry cleaned, so I prepare Trey to head out.  The plan is Dry Cleaner, Playground, Cosi's school.  A quick phone call assures me that the dry cleaner takes comforters and cleans them at a reasonable rate.  Trey is dressed and ready to go.  He shouts, "To...the...GARAGE!" and runs there with conviction.

At the dry cleaner, Trey is unhappy and wants to go instead to a grocery store.  He settles for the playground.  While there, he usually enjoys playing with the drinking fountain.  He finds leaves and other small things to make them float in his mini waterfall.  While he's playing there, April calls.  Not being good at multi-tasking, I talk to April and fail to notice that Trey has found a bite-sized piece of bread on the ground.  He puts it in the drinking fountain.  Unimpressed with how the bread responds to water, (and this is the part I didn't quite see, but I THINK this is what happened) Trey ate the bread.  April says she's hanging up so I can focus on Trey.  Good move.

We pick up Cosi from school, head home for a quick lunch, and then take Cosi to her occupational therapy session.  While she's there, Trey and I head to RTS, so Trey can play on the elevator and Foosball table.  We pick Cosi up, head home, and the kids play around in the yard, on the patio, in the house, wherever I'll let them go.  As they start to wind down, I make some dinner.  My friend Brandon is again coming over to study Greek, the night before his exam.  He shows up around 6.  The kids are noticeably tired, but I'm letting them make a mess with their toys, so they leave us (mostly) alone for an hour.  Trey inexplicably thinks Brandon is his Pawpaw.  Brandon is Hispanic and in his mid-20's.  Trey's PawPaw is neither.

By the time Brandon leaves the kids need to be fed again.  Food, PJs, brush teeth, diapers on...it's now 9pm.  In the back of my mind are two thoughts- 1) I slept 3 hours last night, and 2) I have a lot of assignments to finish by tomorrow.  So when the kids ask to watch Mickey Mouse before bed, I pull the old, "put them in bed, turn out the lights, and put the show on so quietly that they have to stay still to hear it" trick.  They're both out before you can say "Do the hot dog dance!"

Meanwhile, I'm trying to finish my remaining exam and sufficiently caffeinate myself in anticipation of a long night.  When I begin to work, I look at my syllabus to make sure I'm doing things right.  It is then that I notice that everything is due at 5pm Tuesday, not midnight.  I had counted on having Tuesday night to work on stuff.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!  I may have panicked a bit.

From 930pm-330am, I'm finishing up assignments.  I get stuck on a formatting problem, unable to get the document to look the way it is supposed to.  Realizing my mind might not be too sharp at the moment, I head to bed.  Another 3 hours of sleep.  Definitely worth it!