A Rude Awakening

For his first birthday, Grandma Susan gave Simon several large toy cars. Six months later, I can still classify these as Simon's favorite toys.
Friday night, I was putting Simon to bed. I reached down to pick up his stuffed monkey and in that process, Simon managed to grab one of the large toy cars off his floor. I let him hold the car during scripture study, prayer, story time and song, but decided to take it away from him before bed. This of course caused a screaming fit and I decided, "What harm would it do for him to have a toy car in bed?" I decided the answer was "none," so I let Simon go to bed with the toy car. It turned out great, because the next morning, Simon woke up at 6:30 a.m. and stayed in his bed playing with the car until 7 a.m.

Saturday night, we did our usual routine and I put him to bed; all the toy cars in his toy box downstairs. Sunday morning at 5:55 a.m., Simon woke up screaming. I went to his room and opened his door. From his crib, he looked and me, and between screams managed to shout "CAR! CAR! CAR!" I lifted him out of his crib and set him on the floor. I expected him to run to Daddy as he has every other morning of his life, but he immediately ran for the stairs and slid down them backwards, not wasting time to climb down. When he hit the landing, he was off again, running to the family/play room. He ran to his toy box and immediately pulled out all his cars. I looked at him and said "You woke me up at 5:55 a.m. so you could play with cars? I'm holding this against you for at least 30 years."

Five minutes later, all 14 cars were on the kitchen floor.

I learned my lesson quickly and last night put Simon to bed with a toy car. Today we had a much more pleasant morning.

Yesterday being Sunday, we got to spend the afternoon together as a family. It was wonderful. Simon and Jacob especially had a great time. Jacob invented a new game of throwing Simon's monkey in the air and catching it right before it hit Simon in the face. The closer it came to his face, the harder Simon laughed. This kid is going to make me a nervous wreck as he gets older. I just know it.