Up Early

April 18th, 2024

It’s starting to get light. The eastern sky has hints of pink and orange at the horizon. The naked trees stand in black contrast to the dawn. A few of the tree limbs have buds on them. The maples are beginning to get leaves. The walnuts and the locusts are still bare. The world is still partially in shadow. The sun will come soon.

I’ve been up since 3:00 AM. I feel like I did when I worked third shift years ago. I’m tired but wound up. I am tempted to lie down and try to sleep some more, but that is pointless. I’m going to be active the rest of the day, a day that really hasn’t even started yet.

Asher, our three-year-old grandson, lives with me and my wife. He sleeps with me at night. He’s restless, constantly moving as he dreams. He often wakes up during the night. He sits up in bed and demands that I carry him to the kitchen and give him a warm bottle of oat milk. I do that. Then I hold him in my arms as I sit in a chair by the table in the dark kitchen. Eventually, he dozes off, and we both go back to bed.

We went through this process around midnight. I woke up three hours later feeling something warm and wet. It was Asher, and everything near him. He had peed through or around his diaper, soaking his pajama pants, the bed sheet, the mattress pad, and the bed cover. Asher was unhappy. So was I.

I stripped the wet stuff off the bed, and then gave Asher a fresh diaper and new pajamas. Then I fed him again. Then I held him. Then I put him down and laid next to him in bed until he slept. I am now in the second phase of the program. I’m washing the soiled bedding and keeping an eye on the boy. I made coffee. That is one thing I did for me. Writing this essay is the second thing.

It is amazing to me that, at the age of sixty-six, I am still preforming the child rearing tasks that I did thirty years ago, along with some other chores that I probably didn’t do back in those days.

I never thought I would be a new parent again.