During the last June holidays, I realized a morning routine was established between the lil boy and me. As I do not work the typical 9-5 job, I get to spend a considerable amount of time with Umar in the morning and, yes, mornings are the best time for father and son bonding. For us, at least.
Umar is an early sleeper and, unfortunately, an early riser, too. On a typical day, he goes to bed at about 8pm and does not get up too often through his sleep. Although, I could be wrong, as I’m the one who would be comatose once I plunk myself on our bed. I have got to say our mattress is the best investment in this house. I digrees. That would be another topic for another time.
As I’ve said, he goes to bed at about 8pm and on most mornings, he would be up by 7am. I have noticed that he would first look around to see if his Umi or myself is awake. I would usually close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. On rare occasions, he would drift back to sleep but most times, he would entertain himself for about 5-10 minutes and once that few minutes of talking to himself is over, he would get restless. He, then, nudges us first and if that fails, he climbs onto us and starts wailing. (Fyi, he sleeps in between the both of us so the pic below quite aptly describes a typical night for us.)
Once he starts wailing and kicking up a big fuss, I would pick him up and bring him outside, just to give the missus the extra precious minutes of rest. First, a diaper change and then, we go to his play area where he would spend an equal amount of time playing with his toys and finding out how they taste like. Once he gets bored, he crawls to where we put his books and again, spend some time tasting them, besides trying to rip the pages apart. Of course, being a good dad, I would read to him in my best British storyteller accent. Good pronunciation is important, isn’t it?
It doesn’t take long for a typical 1 year old to get bored and Umar is no different. Once he’s bored, he would climb onto me, signaling me to walk him around the house. Although he can already walk on his own, he still prefers to hold on to my hand. He would explore the entire house, trying to open each and every drawer available and then, he would walk to his “Cosy Coupe” car and try to get in by himself. Of course, he can’t. That’s when I would bring him outside and let him ride in the car. On those days that I don’t look too horrible without a shower, I would bring him to the playground near our place. If not, I would let him ride his car just along the corridor. Once he’s bored, it’s home again and this time to wake the missus up and head out for breakfast.
Now that the June holidays are over, I miss our early morning routine. We can only do it on our precious weekends when mornings are not a mad rush to send the missus to work and Umar to his grandparents place. Once he is a lil older, I guess we could set a new routine for ourselves on non-school holidays mornings. It’s something I am looking forward to and I think, he does, too. 🙂
