All Three of Us

For the past week, Pat has been on the 3-11 shift. That means that he is sleeping in the morning when Aidan and I get up, eat breakfast and get out the door. And then, he is at work in the evening when Aidan and I get home. . .this has confused Aidan tremendously. He kept wanting to know when Daddy would be home. He didn't remember the shift work from last summer.

A couple of evenings, when he wasn't too busy, Daddy did come by the house to see Aidan. This was great. . .until Daddy had to leave again and Mama then had to calm Aidan down.

Coinciding with Daddy working the late shift was a new thing for Aidan. He had trouble getting to and staying asleep. I'm guessing it had to do with Daddy not being home, but I'm not sure. That meant we had a lot of snuggle time in the rocking chair. I would hold him and rock him and say, shhh, my baby boy, Aidan. The other day I heard him, while he patted MY back, say "My baby boy, Mama."

He's been really good this week otherwise, tolerating my feeble attempts at play and even amusing me by eating good--even at dinner! There was only one moment when I had to wonder how this is all affecting Aidan and that was when Aidan said to me, "Daddy mad at Aidan." No he's not, precious boy!!!

To that end, I told him all week that on Wednesday Daddy would get him up, have breakfast with him and then take him to Dawn's (our sitter) He was so excited! Then, yesterday arrived. I had extra time, so I delayed my shower by an hour only to find out that Pat really wanted to be up at the hunting campt earlier than originally planned! He still got Aidan up and gave him breakfast, but he didn't eat with him and I took Aidan to Dawn's. I never got ready so fast in my life! Needless to say, Aidan was very upset when Daddy left the house.

Another side effect of this late shift has been that whenever I tell Aidan we're going to do something, he says, "All three of us, Mama?" And so, another thing I've told Aidan we were doing was to go to church yesterday (Ash Wednesday services) and then we would go to dinner. "All three of us, Mama?" Yes, baby, all three of us.

And so we did. Aidan actually did pretty good, too. He didn't get scared about the ashes and, in fact, took a look at mine and said " Sky Beep Beep!" (At the altar, of course, and that is what he calls airplanes.



He was so fascinated by the ashes, he actually got out my compact and was looking and touching them. I think that's a good sign. Next year, while he may not remember, I'll spend more time explaining what it's all about.

And so now we begin the 11pm to 7 am shift. I think this will go better. . .