We have a four-year old who can be particular.

He is the only four-year old I’ve ever met who can be “particular”.

I’m kidding…aren’t they all particular?  I think so.

I’ve mentioned before that I get up early.

It’s quiet in our house if I can get up early. If I can beat the rooster, I know it’s going to be quiet for a while.

That’s a chance I’m willing to take.  I will get up early for that little window of peace.

Now, the “wild card” in the whole scenario is my little boy. If I do anything that makes noise, I run a good chance of waking him up.  If I wake him up, the chances that things will remain predictably quiet decrease by a factor of one.

The “factor of one” is tremendously variable.

I don’t know math…from what I remember a factor of one isn’t usually all that big a deal.

It’s a big deal in this situation.

This morning, Nate got up.  I’d decided that I’d start the day with a quick shower.

I decided that I’d start the day with a quick shower in the only bathroom we have in our little house. The bathroom is right across the hallway from the bedroom Nate sleeps in.

It’s right across from the bedroom Nate wakes up in, too.

Nate knows that Mommy and Sparrow need to sleep early in the morning…so fifty percent of the time, he won’t go in to our bedroom to wake them up.

Usually, he sits on the couch and watches cartoons…after I get him something to eat and drink…and I write this blog before everyone else gets up.

My typing has gotten a lot faster since I started racing the clock like that.

This morning Nate got up, and one of the first things he said was, “I DON’T WANT A BLANKET!!!!!”

Of course, I could only answer, in the rapidly dissolving quiet of the morning, “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhdon’tsaythatsoloudshhhhhhhhhhhhwhat?youdon’twantablanket?What….whatdoyoumean?whatblanket?”

The next thing he said was, “I WANT A BLANKET!!!!!!!!!!!”

The next thing he said was, “NO!!!!!!!NO!!!!!!NOTTHATBLANKET!!!!!NOTTHATONE!!!!”

Of course, the only thing that made any sense at that point for me to say, in addition to “shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhpleaseshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” was “WHATBLANKETTHEN?!!!!!!”

“MYBLANKET!!!! MY BLANKET!!!!”

Well…now that we’d narrowed it down to “my blanket”…now that we’d identified it…I only had 3 blankets to choose from.

I finally got it right on choice number two.

And it was peaceful again for a moment.

That’s the way it goes. We get used to it being like that.

I used to tell my wife that I wanted to build a “writing shack” back in the woods.  This was before we had remodeled our old kitchen or built the small addition.

I guess that I wanted a “man fort” back up in the woods that I could do some serious work in without interruption.

I wanted a “tree fort” that I could build on the ground.

Before we’d improved our house, this notion wasn’t met with great enthusiasm.

After we’d improved our house, this notion wasn’t met with great enthusiasm.

Anything that sounds like a retreat, no matter how ineptly I’ve tried to cloak it with a veneer of the “promise of serious work”, doesn’t go over very well.

I don’t play golf.

I don’t “schedule meetings” or “stay late at the office”.

Where am I going to hide? In the mail jeep? Out on the road, opening every mailbox that I see?

Parents have to be empaths. We have to read between every line.  We have to make decisions “on the fly”. We have to listen to a lot of weird stuff.

Right now, I’ve gotten this “blanket thing” under control.

It’s not quiet by a long shot…but it’s “quieter”.

I’ll take my victories as they come.

PS The picture is of Nate when he was a lot younger…but you get the idea. That little baby in the background isn’t ours…I don’t know where that baby came from.