Jonny McCambridge: Waking up early to leap into life

Suddenly, I am being roughly shaken and stirred into consciousness, leaving the imaginary sausage roll only half consumed.

‘Uhhh….mmmmmm…what the heck?’

Through the depth of the night I can just about recognise the outline of my son standing over me. There is a fleeting moment of alarm, as I wonder if something terrible has happened. I quickly look at the clock and see that it is just a few minutes after 5am.

‘Daddy, I’m getting up now to make my breakfast.’

‘Uh, ok son. It’s still very early. Do you need help?’

‘No, no, I can do it.’

He scuttles off and I hear the sound of his little feet descending the stairs. I lay back again, hoping that I am still close enough to sleep that I can seamlessly pick up from where I was a few minutes ago, that the memory of the sausage roll can be summoned from some dusty corner of my brain. Mercifully, within seconds, I can feel the tiredness washing over me and I begin to snore lightly.

Almost immediately, I am being shaken again.

‘Uhhh….mmmmmm.’

‘Daddy, will you check the kitchen to see if there is a mouse before I go in?’

I had forgotten this bit. Last week I caught a mouse in a trap. Since then, my son has refused to enter the room without a rodent surveillance exercise being carried out in advance.

I haul myself upright and scratch my head. I am no more than half-awake as I descend the stairs at a painfully slow pace, and I have to hold the bannister for support. I can feel my toes sinking into the carpet. The harsh glare of the kitchen light stings my eyes as I enter the room. I glance around quickly. The trap is empty.

‘It’s alright son, the coast is clear.’

‘Thanks daddy.’

‘I’m going back to bed for a bit. I need some sleep.’

My limbs feel heavy as I go back upstairs. However, when I return to bed the comfy spot has disappeared and I turn over a few times on the mattress, trying to settle. Eventually I am still, comfortable although not quite asleep. I hear my son enter the room again. He shakes me, although more gently this time.

‘Daddy, I think I heard a noise outside.’

‘It’s probably the wind son, it makes the branches on the trees shake.’

He thinks about this for a moment.

‘Will you come and check daddy?’

My head feels like a sack of sand on the pillow, but I pull myself back to my feet and lead my son downstairs once again. The glare of the kitchen light is only slightly less oppressive on this occasion. I notice that Rice Krispies have been spilled across the sideboard.

As I walk across the room, I feel the crunch of some of the brittle cereal under my bare feet. I make a show of going into the back yard to check for intruders. Then I go back into the kitchen and clean up the fallen grains of cereal. Then I return again to bed.

This time rest is not so easily found. While exhaustion seems to be seeping out of me, I know that the chances of getting back to sleep are slim now. I settle for just lying on top of the bed.

After a few minutes I can hear my son coming back upstairs. There is a rustling sound as he gets dressed next door, struggling for some minutes to get his socks on. Then he is in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. I wait for what I know inevitably comes next. I hear him enter the room again.

‘Mummy, daddy, I’ve had my breakfast, put my uniform on, washed my face and brushed my teeth. I’m ready for school.’

I glance again at my watch. It is not yet 6am.

‘That’s good buddy. You can play for a bit until it is time to go.’

This has been the routine for some weeks now. School mornings are marked by my son’s habit of waking earlier and earlier. I would shudder at the number of hours of sleep I have lost, if only I had the energy left to do it.

I’ve tried a few different tactics to get my boy to sleep later. I’ve kept him up later at night, but he still rises at the same disturbing hour. I’ve tried putting him to bed earlier, reasoning that this way he will at least get the proper number of hours of rest.

But he just stays awake until later in the night…and still rises around 5am. I can’t really explain why he does it, other than to say he is excited about going to school and likes to be ready well in time. Unlike me, he seems to be able to operate much as normal with diminished hours of rest.

Last week, my wife and I went to my son’s school to visit his teacher, the first such face-to-face consultation since the Covid pandemic began. As I always do on these occasions, I felt a ripple of nervousness as I sat waiting on the tiny chair in the corridor looking at the brightly-coloured drawings on the wall.

The meeting went well. The teacher gave us an update on his academic progress. I listened with interest, before asking the question that I feel is most important.

‘Do you think he’s happy in class?’

The teacher told us about my son’s large circle of friends. How she can see him coming out of his shell more and more everyday and how she loves the sound of his laughter, his curious nature and his imagination.

I take my son to school each morning. For years, this was often a trying ordeal. There were plenty of tears and imaginary sore tummies to be navigated to get him to the school gates. Once there, words of comfort and encouragement were often needed to get him to take those last few steps. The bitterness of the process scarred me, the impotence of seeing your child miserable and feeling you can do nothing to make it better.

Now, finally, he is comfortable in the environment. He has friends who share his interests. Schoolwork, previously a conundrum, now seems to make sense to him. Where before he eschewed all attempts to get him involved in extracurricular activities, now he is enrolled in guitar, computer coding and ju-jitsu lessons.

The truth is that he is leaping into life, enjoying every part of it. It has not always been this way and I am sure the road will not always be quite this smooth. But, just for now, he is too excited to stay in bed and can’t wait to embrace the day. It is beautiful to see. If the result is that I miss out on some hours of sleep, then it is a small price to pay.