Power Rangers: Operation Milk River

Lately Parker has been waking up extremely early, somewhere between 5 and 5:30 am. He will come in to our room, and say "mom....mom....mom....mom...." until I get up and turn on the TV to Power Rangers. So, in a daze I get up, turn it on, and get back in bed. Then, he will come in 15 minutes later and I will hear ".mom...mom...mom...mom...." at which point he makes the "come here" hand sign, takes my hand, drags me to the kitchen, and points to the cereal. Every morning I pour him his cereal of choice, and then attempt to go back to bed once again. Inevitably these event steps repeat again and again with a cup of juice, a blanket, or something else he wants, until I finally lose my morning daze, get up, and watch Power Rangers with him.

Two nights ago, while we were getting ready for bed, I was talking to Taylor about this pattern. Somehow, Taylor found it hilarious that Parker only comes in and wakes me up...but whatever. He mentioned to me, "Why don't you combine steps in hopes that he will have less to come in about?" Good plan, I thought. I will get up tomorrow and get the juice, cereal, Power Rangers, blanket, and anything else he could possibly want up front in hopes of increasing the number of minutes between "snoozes" on my "mom...mom...mom..." alarm clock.

So that is just what I did...got up, got everything, and returned back to bed before my morning daze wore off. Around 5:30 that morning Abby had come in to snuggle. It wasn't minutes later when I hear in the delicate voice of my 4 year old...."mom...Parker has cereal in the bed." "Its okay", I said. "Go back to sleep." (Obviously, I wasn't all there.) She responded with,"Okay....but I am sleeping in a river of milk." Leaping onto my feet in an acrobatic fashion in which I know the Pink Power Ranger would have been jealous of, I find my bed covered in soggy cornflakes and milk. Parker was sitting at the end of the bed laughing. Since this is not our bed, nor our mattress, I thought I needed to clean it up immediately before I was charged for a new mattress on the basis of the rotten milk smell coming from it. I started running to find a towel in the kitchen, anxious to get the mess cleaned before it soaked through. However, as I crossed the threshold of our bedroom, milk spillage from Parker carrying his bowl was on the floor, and like a cartoon character foiled by an evil plan, I slipped and landed on my back onto the cold tile floor.

Pain rippled through my body as it never had before. I wanted to scream. I laid there a few moments trying to regain composure. As I did so, Parker got out of my bed, came and stood over me and smiled. Cornflakes were dried onto his face and clothes, he was soaked in milk. I had to laugh. I got up, got the towel, and stood over the river of milk...Abby and Taylor were both asleep in the bed....Abby having moved to drier land. Ah, I thought....the joys of motherhood.

Needless to say, this morning when my "alarm clock" went off I decided it would be best to avoid the snooze button and to get up to enjoy the ever-so-talented and overly dramatic stylings of the Power Rangers. Our morning proved uneventful.