looking back, i’m pretty sure Dave started it.

it was a few months back now, when O was really beginning to get his legs under him and not just walk, but climb. or want to, at least. but there aren’t a whole lot of things in this house that someone with very short, very stubby eleven-inch legs – which do not come from my side of the family – can actually make his way up and around in any fashion that holds the interest of a one-year old. the guest futon had grown dull. his own chair? we kept making him sit down in it. so the Boy grew creative. or…got his revenge.

he began climbing us. and sitting on us, when ever we were prone. which given that we have been enthusiastic subscribers to the horizontal parenting program ever since Oh the Joys first began selling it thru Amway promoting it on her blog, is quite frequent. we are not tall folk, nor energetic ones. we like to be near the earth.

our offspring, though? not so much. he wants to scale the fleshy heights.

it began innocently enough, one morning when Oscar was playing the ever-delightful game of climbing Mt. Daddy, who was lumbering in bed, lollygagging. O managed, for the first time, to actually clamber up onto the small of his father’s back, where he seated himself like a seasoned cowboy and raised a small hand in gleeful pride. i cooed. Dave, wakened by the weight on his bladder, bucked like a pony bronco. Oscar squealed with happiness.  much bouncing ensued.  all normal.

but plain old horsey rides grew dull, unchallenging.  Oscar, seeker of xtreme thrills, began searching for new parental mountains to climb.  riding our legs was boring.  sitting astride our necks held a brief charm for him, if we both found it faintly suffocating…but it was when he discovered that he could sit atop our heads and make us cry like babies that he really began to enjoy himself.

every morning at our house, far too early, a small voice begins to howl.  a parent rises, sometimes making the futile attempt to encourage the owner of said small voice to return to slumber – or at least silence – for another brief but blessed period.  more usually, the small voice and its owner are brought into the parental bed for a cuddle and some milk.

i say cuddle.  by this i mean parents lie back down and pretend to catch five minutes more rest while offspring trods all over them, spilling milk as he goes.  it’s very intimate, a bonding time, but with a WWE kind of flair.  especially since the head fetish started.  having ones hair trod on and pulled wholesale from its roots isn’t pleasant at the very best of times.  having one’s hair trod on and pulled wholesale from its roots by a maniacally laughing short-legged demon perched atop one’s face, bouncing and wearing a very very wet and pissy diaper?

apparently, if you’re the fetishist in question, it’s indescribably fun, replete with occasional toddler tossing and muttered curses and cries from the tortured.

as the injured party, whose beseiged hairstyle is quickly returning to that unfortunate asymetrical look that we who lived through 1983 swore we would never speak of again, it is not the alarm clock i would necessarily choose.  but dude…it works!  piques the senses, gets the flight or fight mechanism going…good times.

did i mention i blame Dave?  as penance, he most generously gets up with the wee demon love, whilst i catch another wink or three.  bless his heart.  i’ve written to the Pope asking for him to be canonized.

toddler available to be at YOUR house for ungodly early wakings – a failsafe alarm clock system, just $29.99 per single use!  brimming with urine cuteness!  hair alteration included free of charge!  call now!  (must be fed in order to deactivate stamping and giggling mechanism. father unit not included.)

so…erm…what are mornings like at your house?