Just another morning

There is nothing like abruptly being woken up from deep slumber before 5:30 a.m. by a screeching toddler who's desperately crying out "mamma, mamma," with an urgency of someone being tortured. I rush into his room, concerned about what's going on. He is desperately trying to take off his pajama pants and diapers, asking for "meme." I tumble down the stairs, more by feel and touch than by sight, praying that I won't miscalculate the number of stairs and twist my ankle, and aiming not to step on the sleeping dog, who's sprawled on the stairs landing, all to the not-so distant background music of a toddler screeching.

It's pitch black outside. I waddle into the kitchen, open the fridge door, shielding my eyes from the bright fridge light (squinting my eyes again, oh no more wrinkles, I think someplace deep in my subconsciousness), pour the milk, and waddle back up the stairs into Ivan's room to deliver the milk. He no longer wants the milk, but is still trying to take off his pants. I take off the pajama. He cries louder, I give him the pants back, "wan that," he says, and throws them across the room.

I pick him up in an attempt to console him. He cries even louder and wants to be put down. He rushes to the gate, pulling on it, like a monkey behind bars, "dole, dole." Downstairs he wants to go.

So, unwillingly I open the gate again, really wishing this episode would end and he'd go back to bed, because that's where I want to be, but no, he sits on the step to say hi to Mariposa, who's wide awake now, wagging her tail.

We go down the stairs into the kitchen. At least he walks, and doesn't insist I carry him, which is good because at his hour I'm still unsure of my balance on the stairs.

I'm ordered to open the fridge door. He wants "senvich." I get the bread and cream cheese. He takes it to the table and orders me to "mamma, mamma, sit there". He tells me to cut the bread in half. I oblige. I spread cream cheese on it. "No mess, mamma," he advises. I give him the sandwich. "Wan it," he says and he pushes it away. I didn't really think he was going to eat it anyway.

But he goes back to the fridge. "Ccc butter," he asks. So I pull out the pbj ingredients. Again, I cut the bread in half. He wants peanut butter on one half and jelly on the other. Usually, we combine the two sandwich halves into one. But no, he wants them apart. He bites into the peanut butter, "wan it," he says and lays on the bench in protest. I didn't think he'd like it either. Peanut butter by itself is too thick to eat. In a second, he comes around the table to spit the contents of his mouth into my hand.

Then he's back at the fridge. I follow him to open the door. Beans, is what is wants. He pulls out the beans tupperware container. I get the spoon. We sit back at the table. I twist the jar open. The pungent smell of Cuban style beans hits my nostrils. The smell is a bit too much at 5:40 a.m. But Ivan eats them with gusto. I want to gag, but instead I turn on this computer, in an effort to distract myself and not to fall asleep while trying to block out the offensive the beans smell. Luckily, a pregnancy side-effect is my constantly stuffy nose, "it's the extra mucus" as pregnacy books helpfully explain, but right now, the extra snot blocking my nasal passages is a rather welcoming buffer to the super olefactory beans molecules that are desperately trying to chisel their way up my nasal cavity.

Seeing me turn on the computer, Ivan declares "ma turn," and I think "great, now I won't be able to peel him of my computer holes into which he'll try to plug and unplug the mouse." But instead, Ivan runs over to get his toy computer. He sets it on the table and turns it on.

"Bunnies, bunnies," he says pointing to the computer. "Bunnies dole." Apparently, bunnies live in the body of computer. He's very concerned about them. Then he points to my computer. Bunnies apparently live in my computer as well. "Bunnies tu, bunnies tu," he says, pointing to the disk drive. Who knew?

These imaginary bunnies keeep cropping up everywhere these last few weeks. Bunnies are everywhere, according to him, even though the only bunnies in the house are a few of his stuffed toys. But no, those don't seem to be the bunnies he refers to.

Like the other day, when he dolefully declared "no more bunnies," as if there were ever bunnies in our back yard. Or the time a few weeks back, when he starred at the window telling me that there are bunnies in the back yard, while Mariposa was vigorously barking at someone/something through the porch door, facing that same direction. I spent a good half an hour looking for this invisible bunny. I have never seen a bunny in our yard. Still it creeped me out, as I thoroughly tried to examine the empty back yard. Nothing but grass back there. Still Ivan was talking about a bunny and Mariposa was barking. I kept thinking, is it a white rabbit from the Jefferson Airplane's song, or maybe an Alice in Wonderland character.

(There are a bunch of bunnies in Andy's parents backyard but not our yard.)

By 6:14 a.m., Ivan has long finished eating his beans, making a big mess in the process both on the table and his shirt, and is demanding "affle." "You want a waffle," I ask. "Affle," he affirmatively nods. So I pull out a frozen French toast from the freezer and plop it in the microwave. "Affle, affle," the screaming continues. A toddler absolutely has to have that instant gratification, and even a two minute delay to warm up the bread is a wailing eternity. Finally, the toast is done. I cut it in into little squares and pour maple syrup on it. He eats it.

It's 6:30 by this time. Everyone is wide awake. Andy is up. Mariposa was let out to pee. I'm wide awake as well, no chance of going back to sleep, now. And Ivan, in his diapers and the beans-smeared pajama top, is busy playing on the kitchen floor with his assortment of plugs, wires and his radio.

The sun has not even come up yet.

And I still have no clue what was so offending about his pajama bottoms an hour earlier.

Just another ordinary morning.