Wednesday February 10th, 2016

The exercise:

Write about: the sleepover.

Another milestone has been reached.

Mine:

Max is having a sleepover at Kat's parents house tonight.

That probably doesn't seem like much to you guys, but give me a few minutes to explain things from our point of view.

This is the first night he's spent apart from us. The first time someone else has put him to bed. The first time we won't be there when he wakes up in the morning (assuming he lasts that long). And if he does last that long, it'll be the first time he's woken up in the middle of the night and neither of us will be there.

Because he always wakes up once, usually to eat something before falling back to sleep. Though Kat joked that he'd probably sleep through the night for her parents. I said that would be fine, as long as it's the start of always sleeping through the night. If he only does it for them then I'm going to be very upset.

Anyway. This is our first practice run. Because when Kat goes into labour Max is going up to her parents house, not with us. And we sure as hell did not want his first sleepover to come while Kat was trying to concentrate on, oh, I don't know... bringing his little brother into the world.

He was pretty excited about it when I dropped him off after lunch. He still seemed excited when we dropped off his overnight stuff before dinner. Then we had dinner at home - so weirdly quiet - and went up to Penticton for a prenatal class Kat is taking. We got home around 9:30, a good two hours or so after his usual bedtime, without any phone calls.

They've gotten him to bed, which was the first hurdle. I'm curious to see how the middle of the night wake up goes. Hopefully it's fine, otherwise I'll be getting a call to let us know they're bringing him home. I suspect it will be okay, but you never know.

Likely? He'll like it so much he'll want to do it again tomorrow night. Or at least again on Sunday, when Kat and I are dropping him off so we can go for a Valentine's Day dinner. I can just see us coming back to bring him home and him saying he wants to stay there and sleep there.

But who knows. Let's just get through tonight first. I'll let you guys know how it went tomorrow.

2 comments:

Greg said...

Oh wow, I hope he does sleep through the night for you all! And that he doesn't decide that his grandparents are better than you and want to spend every night up there ;-) The quiet dinner sounds like it was nice, though perhaps you kept wondering if the phone was going to ring and announce disaster?

The sleepover
"Mavis? Mavis!"
"Derek? Good grief, the warehouse manager told me that you'd turned feral and chewed your own leg off a month ago! Wait... did you?"
"Umm... no?"
"Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Dere–"
"Don't hang up Mavis!"
"I wasn't going to hang up Derek, I think we should talk a li–"
"I want to invite you to a sleepover."
"..."
"Mavis?"
"I'm sorry Derek, for a moment there I heard you saying you wanted to invite me to a sleepover. I think perhaps the fumigant is leaking into the AC system. Let me–"
"No! No! I did! I did!"
"You're sounding very agitated Derek."
"Sleepover Mavis! We can wear pyjamas and braid your hair and I can show you how sane I am."
"I've never accused you of being in–"
"Yes, but I want my job back, Mavis. I want to be in charge again. I've had a lovely holiday and I'm ready to come back."
"..."
"Mavis?"
"Derek. You've been locked in the basement for the past six months, waiting while our lawyers try and get you classified as hardscrabble so that they can have you used in a landfill site. I know you don't want to hear this, but the chances of you being allowed out of that basement for anything other that thinly-disguised murder or organ harvest are zero."
"I thought you'd listen to me Mavis."
"I am listening Derek. If I get caught listening to you I'll be sacked. That's the risk I'm taking for you."
"Oh."
"Oh what, Derek?"
"I did chew my leg off, Mavis. That's how I escaped."
"..."
"I'm in the carpark, Mavis."
"..."
"Mavis? Mavis! Don't hang up on me Mavis!"

Marc said...

Greg - let's just say we both kept an eye on the phone that night :)

Derek has escaped! Derek has escaped! Derek... might not be a whole lot better off than before.

Regardless, I shall look forward to whatever unfortunate events await his departure from the basement :)