Every morning I wait for my alarm to go off, but I don’t actually need an alarm.

I have three alarms that go off, consistently, before the official alarm.

Those alarms are Will, Nora, and Eric.

I can hear Will usually as soon as he opens the door to his bedroom. He’ll mosey on over to our room, snapping his fingers (it’s his new trick) as he walks in. He asks, “Is it morning time?”

Usually, though, before he even makes it up and out of his bed I’ve already gotten up two or three times to put a binky back in one or the other’s mouth. Sometimes both.

Most of the time I grumble as I roll out of bed, little crusty’s caked on my eyes, a bit of drool down the side of my chin. I do my duty, but sweet Lord it leaves me tired.

My kids are all out-of-town at the in-laws for a week.

“A whole week without kids?!”, you say? “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?!”, you say?

Sleep. Lots of sleep.

I’m caught though between being a bit relived to get a bit of extra sleep and the, albeit it ever short-lived, feeling of not having to really do anything and missing the hell out of them.

How is it that you can miss something that makes you feel so tired and out of sorts?

I miss being woken up at the ass crack of dawn by my son finger snapping himself into our room. I miss the smiles I get from the twins when I walk into their room to get their binky or pull a baby blanket up.

The only truly good part about my kids not being home has been the alone time I’ve had with my wife (get your mind out of the gutter…). Being able to sit and watch a TV show without getting up every few minutes (an exaggeration) or to just pick up and go to the ice cream spot for a sundae or to go to the gym together has been incredible. We haven’t been able to do these things so simply in a long time.

It feels good.

All the same though? I miss my damn kids.

All the mumbling under my breath, all the things I let bore their way into my head, the lack of sleep (which isn’t terrible honestly, just an extra hour would be fucking outstanding), the toys everywhere (ever stepped on a Lego? HAVE YOU?!)…I gladly accept it all.

I actually talked a lot of shit about how great it was to have no children for a week. Turns out I was all talk. Just flapping my stupid lips. I miss my kids. I have since about the moment we got home after dropping them off and we walked into the house and realized how…quiet it was.

Too quiet.

So I’ll be happy my kids are home so I can go back to mumbling under my breath, taking a poop that lasts about fifteen minutes longer than it should, and feeling like all I want is just one more damn hour of sleep.