One of the many advantages of being a daytime dad is the occasional opportunity to help someone who operates on a completely different schedule.
One of the few disadvantages is finding ample time to sleep.
If you have a child or (gulp) children and burn a little midnight oil for a paycheck, you most certainly can relate.
You take what you can get, of course, and some days are much better than others.
For the record, Little One is a pretty good sleeper. Normal wake time is sometime north of 7 a.m., although he can, and occasionally does, push 8 a.m. (jackpot!).
The National Sleep Foundation says there is no “magic number” of sleep hours adults need to live healthy and/or coherently. This is good news, Daytime Dad thinks, because the only magic numbers he follows usually come sometime in early fall if/when the beloved Red Sox are closing in on a playoff berth.
Daytime Dad, who falls asleep sometime between 1-2 a.m. depending on the night at work, claims victory if he gets six hours of sleep a night. Maybe that’s the magic number?
Coupled with an afternoon n-a-p with Little One, and Daytime Dad does well for sleep.
And then there was Wednesday, when Daytime Dad offered to look after four siblings of various ages, including three boys and a girl Little One calls ‘princess.’
Little One loves them all, and time spent with them is time well spent.
Upon learning of their arrival the day before, Little One’s excitement was palpable at worst. He was, indeed, bursting with fruit flavor – so much so that Wednesday morning wakeup came at a robust 5:30 a.m.
Hooray!
By 6 a.m., Daytime Dad realized he made a rookie parenting mistake: He informed a child that a day of fun and games would happen … tomorrow.
Oops.
Little One couldn’t contain himself and the excitement, like the sun, only grew brighter and brighter.
The kids, all five of them, enjoyed their time together.
A tired Daytime Dad enjoyed watching them, but vowed victory would again come Thursday.