Big and Strong

My kids are early birds, although Avery insists it's because Piper wakes them up too early, and every morning around 6:45am, I have one of them at my bedside, asking when I'm going to wake up.  

This morning was no different.  I had been up a few times in the night with Milo, who lately has been demanding a few midnight snacks, followed by an inevitable diaper change.  Chet's alarm went off at some unearthly hour and it's one of those unearthly alarms that sounds like chainsaws, bells, trumpets and someone scraping their fingernails down a chalkboard, all at once.  

I made some grumbly comment to him about the unnecessary noise at this hour of the day and he made some grumbly reply about the fact that some people have to get up early and go to work and don't have the luxury of sleeping in.  I attempted to whack him with my pillow but fell back asleep in the process.  

At about 6:30am, Avery was at the foot of my bed.  A little ahead of schedule. 

"When are you going to get up, Mom?"  she asked.

"When I decide."  I replied.

"Huh!"  she huffed and stomped out of the room.

A few minutes later, Tucker appeared.

"Mom, you should weally wake up."  he said.

"I will." I said.  "Go play."

"Ugh!"  he groaned and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

A few moments later, I heard Avery yelling something along the lines of, "Mom, if you don't wake up, you'll turn into a goon!"  All the commotion woke up Milo, who began babbling from his crib.  

I rolled over and fished for my phone.  7:05am.  Too early.  I don't know why I even bother to sleep in.  I guess I can sleep when I'm dead.

In my grogginess, I stumbled into the kitchen to get breakfast ready but Tucker had already taken it upon himself to do that.  He had the table set with bowls, spoons, cups and the cereal.  He was working on getting the milk to the table.  I opened the fridge door for him and noticed that on my to-do list, Avery had added, "Fall-go to school."  

I partially smiled, trying to remember which month we were in, when Tucker began throwing a royal fit on the kitchen floor.  He was trying to drag a completely full gallon of milk across the floor over to the table, but was having a hard time.  I looked into the fridge and saw an almost empty gallon of milk that would have sufficed.  I turned to start questioning his motive, but Avery was already on it.

"Why didn't you take that one instead?"  she asked him, pointing to the mostly empty gallon.  "It's not even heavy."

"I want to be big and strong."  he said, sobbing. 

Avery looked at me with an expression that read, "my little brother is weird but I love him anyway".  We both shrugged at each other and helped Tucker carry the full gallon over to the table.