Anyone with military experience and those who watched "Good Morning, Vietnam" starring Robin Williams understand the term "zero dark thirty." It simply refers to any time earlier than when a person would like to crawl out of bed. Many would refer to the normal wake-up time of triathletes in training that way. But for me, 0430 has become the standard time for reville to sound.
Even so, it is possible for someone to wake me up earlier than planned. Especially when the someone is under four feet tall and younger than five years of age. As we have two in our household that qualify, it is quite common that I get wake up calls before the alarm sounds. Let's call it zero DARKER thirty.
It has been an interesting few days in our house as we "closed" the nursery. Monster Girl has a new room, and B-Boy traded up from the toddler bed to a twin bed. So everyone is a bit out of whack. The main result of that is one tired daddy.
Our daughter is getting used to a new room, a new bed, and new rules. Since we now have a door between her and her brother, screaming at night is less of an issue. That gives us the flexibility to allow her to stay in her room and scream her lungs out. Of course, that DOES limit our ability to sleep, but such is life.
As a compromise, we (and by "we" I mean me, as our kids have some strange need for daddy to care for them in the middle of the night) have been dragged out of bed at all hours of the night. Generally, it's to discuss with our daughter the reasons why she should stay in her bed, or at least her room. The conversations usually go something like this:
Her - "Mommy-daddies room."
Me - "No, you have your own room, now, and we'll stay in here."
Her - "No, mommy-daddy room."
Me - "Let's lay down here, and I'll stay with you."
Her - "Potty."
Me - "Do you need to go potty, or do you just want to walk around?"
Her - "B's room." ("B" is what she calls her brother)
Me - "This is your room, now, why don't you lay down and we'll go to sleep."
Her - "Juice!"
Me - "You know you don't get food and drink at night."
Her, in a more insistent tone - "Mommy-daddies room."
Me - "We've been through that, so you'll just have to scream. Orrr, we can lay down and go back to sleep."
Her - "Radio on!"
Me - Now we're talking. Once she's gone through enough arguments to ask for music, it's almost over.
For some reason, these little exercises tend to start around 0330. After spending 15-20 minutes going through the scream, protest, beg, scream, negotiate, concede routine, it often becomes either difficult or pointless to try and go back to sleep.
That's okay, though. Because by then, we're usually past zero darker thirty. And zero dark thirty is late enough to get moving and go train.
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