Wake up!

“Just look at the time Arin, its 2.30 pm. If you want to play football with dada in the evening, you must sleep now so that you can wake up at 4 have your milk and run,” I tempted him for the nth time, on yet another Saturday.
Every weekend’s a whirlwind of lunches at home, one dinner at a friend’s place and the resurgent urge to make up for the lost sleep and energy of the week gone by. Naturally, the soothing afternoon siesta is topmost on the mind. Hmmm…life’s settled into much of a routine.
The trouble you see begins when on one of these afternoons he just refuses to sleep. After three stories, a couple of rhymes and the favourite Oh Susana, he announces, “I’m not going to sleep mamma. Play with me.” Very sure of every word that comes out of the sweet little brain, Arin grins or conveys straight faced.
Uff! I hit my head mentally, and, physically when the night before’s been especially long.
He wakes up around six, often times before 6 am. Wouldn’t sleep be a natural need for any three-and-a-half-year-old around 1 pm post a heavy lunch and perhaps a bath, then?
While he rubs the sleep straight out of the system with his beautiful little fingers, I sweat over the afternoon and evening looming large. Kunal manages his forty winks through it all. Football, cricket and colouring later we settle down to milk. “TV. I wont have milk without it,” he declares. Why? Coz Dada dear has taught him that to give something, you have to get something. And milk in this kids parlance is obviously not a hot or cold favourite.
Lets not get into how much or how the milk went down the gullet and skip straight to the next bit. I point out after the milk that he’s not going for football with Dada because he’s not slept. “Ok. Let’s go down to play with my cycle mamma,” he decides. With a cycle under his control – without brakes – the evening happily flies by.
Of course it’s a TV dinner at 7 pm. And the bundle of energy finally falls asleep by 8 pm. The day’s done. I’m bushed. And ready to call it a night. Now if only the older boy would eat his veggies on time, not watch angry movies and talk, I could be in bed by ten, snoring.