The Bouncy Breakup

It was a dark day in HamannEggs land this morning. Literally. Luca woke up at 5am. No, not crying. It’s Luca we’re talking about. But he was flopping like a fish and yelling. Diana moaned, “Kill me.” Rather than smother my wife with a decorative pillow, I decided to take Luca downstairs.

Like most mornings when he wakes up at an hour when milkmen and roosters shout, “Go back to sleep, you lunatic!” I flipped on Sports Center and fed the boy. Then I reunited him with his best friend, the bouncy seat. And I fall into a half sleep zombie mode on the couch.

If you count up the hours, Luca spends more time with his bouncy seat than any human being, with the exception of his mother. And that’s just because he spent 9 months floating in her innards.

He loves it. It bounces. There are creepy plastic animals hanging just out of arm’s reach. It vibrates. If I had a man-sized one I’d never leave the house.

Wait. I should’ve said, “He LOVED it.” This morning after I put him in, Luca began shouting loudly. Not crying. It’s Luca we’re talking about. But he shouted extremely loud. Loud enough to wake me from my zombie mode.

I grabbed him out of the seat and he stopped shrieking and started giggling. Uh-oh. He lost that lovin’ feeling for the bouncy seat. I had to sit upright. And I had to entertain an infant. At 5am. That goes against our arrangement. He agrees to sit quietly in his bouncy seat and I agree to stay just awake enough to not put him in danger.

I sleepily played the superbaby game with Luca and tried not to offend him by yawning. At about 6, Elijah came down the stairs, breaking my other morning agreement. He agrees to sleep until 7 and I agree not to yell at him. I couldn’t really send him back to his room. It seemed a little jerky to say, “Um, no. Your tiny brother gets to hang out with me and watch TV. You must stare at your darkened jungle painting for another hour.”

I patted the couch and told him to join us. But I required him to participate in the non-bouncy chair entertainment. Eli tried to make Luca smile by getting in his face and shouting, “Hi lit-tle guy!”

After a while, I stumbled into the kitchen to make the strongest cup of coffee known to man. I said a little prayer that Grover hadn’t broken our morning arrangement about pooping in our basement. I didn’t like my odds.