“Mommyyyyyyyyyyy!!!” Filipe wakes me up at 6. I drop one of my legs to the floor. The rest of my body follows. It takes me five minutes to drag my exhausted body to his bedroom, located a grand total of 9 feet from me. I take him out of the crib, remove his diaper and don’t replace it because we are in the middle of the potty training. I collapse on the ground next to my son who is trying to wake up by rubbing my face. Now, Filipe is driving his tractor across my belly. His periodic “vroom vroom” is making me sleepy.
I feel like a corpse this morning. It probably has to do something with the fact that Filipe woke up three times last night and demanded service each time. He got nothing but a dry diaper and a bottle of milk. My husband and I assume that he was hungry - probably because he refused to eat dinner. It is not normal for us to eat leftovers from lunch at dinner, which he is well aware of, and to which he promptly turned up his nose. He even refused his favorite carrot soup that I quickly made in a desperate attempt to feed him. Had he eaten it, he would have lost his little revolt. Therefore, he had no other option but to go to sleep hungry.
After a couple of minutes we crawl into the bathroom. I do so because I still can’t hold myself in an upright position yet and Filipe follows suit because he thinks it’s a game. Then, we brush each other’s teeth. As a rule Filipe only lets his daddy brush his teeth. For some inexplicable reason he hates when I do it. He will bite the floor mat, in order to deny access to his mouth. On the other hand, he loves the game when I brush his teeth while he brushes mine – so that’s what we do.
After my morning routine, I usually put on my contacts but I just can’t manage it today. Still on all fours, not yet upright, I continue to the kitchen, where I start filling my mocha kettle with coffee. My son swings open our fridge and demands juice. That is his fuel, just like coffee is mine. When I pour this golden liquid into his bottle he dances a celebratory dance around me and shouts “Bumbu!” (baby-Czech for ‘drink’).
While I am making my coffee, Filipe goes through the contents of the cabinet under the sink. Window cleaner, laundry detergent, stain remover… “Filipe, close!” I shout in horror. He listens and immediately returns the chemicals to their place, closes the door, and secures the childproof lock. He is a darling.
I spend Friday morning cleaning up, starting in the bathroom. Filipe is demanding my full attention. To try and entertain him, I give him the first thing I find - big mistake. It is the dental floss. I am shocked at how much floss fits in such a tiny box. I am thinking about that in an almost detached sort of way, as I rescue my son who is wrapped in a seemingly never-ending amount of floss.
Afterwards we move to the living room where I quickly make some flash cards for my Czech classes. Before I manage to conjugate the verb “to be,” Filipe empties the pencil box and paints his face with a black marker. I immediately bring him to the bathroom and put him on the sink counter. He enthusiastically grabs the faucet and soaks his socks. It takes me a minute to persuade him to look at himself in the mirror. His wide American smile vanishes and is immediately replaced with a terrified grin. “Neci (baby Czech for I don’t want to)!” cries the perplexed artist. After all, who would want to look like Mario, right?
Before lunch we Skype with my mom. He is very excited and as he dances around he knocks down a frame containing a picture of himself. “Is the glass broken?” Grandma naively asks. There are no frames with glass in this household. Well within the first two years of his life, Filipe managed to break them all. In this instance he destroyed the entire decoration and I had no choice but to throw it in trash right away. All four pieces.
Lunch was chicken pasta with broccoli. I serve broccoli as an appetizer, because Filipe is finally hungry. The entire bowl disappears in a second. Filipe might be the only kid who adores vegetables. Even green beans, which despite being omnipresent in the South, I do not particularly care for.
Do your children pick vegetable out of their meals? So does my son. The problem is he does not want the rest. Meat, rice or potatoes remain untouched while tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini disappear into my son’s laughing mouth.
Today, however, we have pasta, which he loves. He quickly shuffles his food with a big spoon that he grabbed in the kitchen as soon as he saw me drop the penne to the boiling water. Now he is sitting in his wooden rocking chair, stuffing himself with red sauce pasta. From time to time a piece of chicken sneaks into his mouth. He chews it and then takes it out to put it on the plate.
He soon puts down the spoon and scoops the pasta with his hands. He pushes his tiny fists full of penne into his mouth. He wipes his red hands across his face spreading the red sauce all over. At first it looks like an imitation of me applying night cream. He is, however, much more thorough. He doesn't miss his ears, eyes or neck. His t-shirt will absorb any leftover sauce from his hands. Before I have a chance to react, he gives me a hug. From that moment on, our t-shirts match…when is daddy coming home?