Max and I have accidently been conducting an experiment this week. It has not gone well.

As most of you that know me will know, I am not a morning person. I may have said before that being a stay at home dad, has forced me to change some of my sleep habits. But even when I’m up, I’m not really awake until around noon. So, needless to say, mornings can be kind of crazy.

Anyway. Last week I heard someone talking about how their kids were horrible brats when they watched TV in the mornings, and the behavior continued the rest of the day. This behavior sounded all to familiar to me and was how we’ve been spending an every growing amount of time lately. So, last Sunday Max and I got up in the morning and started playing. There were a few times that he asked about the TV, but when I said no, he would just keep on playing and forget about it. After a few hours of playing I turned on the football games, but continued to play with him and interact more with him. He was by no means perfect. But, at least to me, it seemed like a different kid in many ways.

Monday Jennifer had to stay home because I’d been up pretty much all night and needed to rest. So, things were a little different that day. But we pretty much did the same thing. More interaction and less TV. Even some more time to play Starfall educational games on the computer.

I continued this on Tuesday, with pretty much the same results. He was a much calmer kid and listened to me. It was great.

But then I hit a wall Tuesday night. I can’t even remember exactly what happened, but I didn’t get enough sleep, or at least restful sleep. So, I was exhausted Wednesday morning. I had no energy to play with Max at all. It was all I could do just to stay awake. So, I went back to the old ways. I turned on the TV and tuned out. And so did Max. He changed almost instantly. He kept asking me to play with him, but like the selfish person I can be when I’m tired, I would tell him no, or later, which means no to him. It was hard to watch. But I had no energy to do anything about it. I just told myself that tomorrow would be better. I’d get some good sleep and everything would be better.

As you can probably guess, I haven’t slept well the rest of the week and it’s all fallen apart. The only evidence there is of the beginning of the week, is that Max now asks me to play more than normal. I know that not all of his actions can be placed on the TV or less interaction. I know that there are going to be days where neither one of us are going to be up for much. But I know that I don’t have patience when I’m tired. And so, I’m sure I don’t treat him the best. It’s hard to see, because I know he is a good kid. But he’s learning my bad habits. My moodiness. My selfishness. I see all of these things reflected back to me in my son.

I know that I need to find a way to get normal sleep. He really wants to play with me now. Who knows how long he’ll keep wanting to, if I keep saying no.