Five in the Morning

Erin and I have been seeing a co-parenting counselor. On our first visit she let us know that she wanted to run things like a business meeting, but if necessary she was "equipped to help us quickly resolve any conflicts that come up during the session." For some reason I pictured a set of dueling pistols set in carved oak moulding in a nice leather case.  Something classy, which she could no doubt afford given what she charges.

We keep it pretty civil so no gloves were thrown down. Instead we got right into the big issue: The Schedule. There were questions that we needed a pro to answer, such as "What is worse, getting woken up at 5am or going 5 straight days without seeing your daddy?" The $150/hour answer was the latter is worse. This is great news for me because it means that every Wednesday and every other Thursday (depending on which week is "my week") I get an extra couple of overnights with the boys.

The bad news for the boys is I get up before dawn to go to work. So there's a new routine: At 5am on these glorious mornings I carefully wrap my sweet angels up in blankets, ease them down one at a time to my waiting car while whispering "there there" and "I love you my little man" into their precious little ears, and then cram them into their car seats for the chilly 15 minute drive to daycare where I gently place them back in beds for the remainder of the morning.  They haven't done it without crying yet.

Hey, it's "character building". These guys have it way too easy and need more of stuff like this. I don't make them do anything else horrible and as everyone knows, spoiled little brats that have it easy turn into assholes (Justin Bieber) and kids who have it rough, whose parents force them to go to catholic school and eat parboiled asparagus with mayonnaise for dinner, grow up to be well-adjusted kind-hearted contributors to society (Mike Bairdsmith).