once // calum hood

3

OCTOBER

I'm awake far before my alarm goes off thanks to another night of close to no sleep. This one felt worse than usual, probably because its been reoccurring all week and my body just needs rest. The sun is up, but I'm not going to get Asher out of his room any earlier than I have to.

As the sun gets brighter outside of my window, I know it's time to get up. My alarm starts to buzz, confirming my thoughts. I turn my phone to silent and leave it in the top drawer of my nightstand, I didn't use it much during the day. I have a full load of online classes as well as an infant to take care of, but since I wasn't really in contact with any friends that was okay. There's not anyone I need to talk to, so I've definitely saved on data these past couple months.

I haven't spoken to Kinley since the party, but I'm okay with that. I didn't do anything wrong, but I know she won't be the one to apologize, so I've accepted the fact that we aren't friends anymore. There's no reason for me to keep her in my life.

When I enter my parent's room, Asher is already awake and bubbling in his crib. Somehow he knows when I wake up, and he never wants to sleep any later. I know that I give up taking care of him usually as soon as my mother gets home, but I still feel like I'm more of his mother than she is. It's exhausting, and when this semester is over, and he can go into daycare, I'll be glad.

Asher isn't a terrible baby, he has his days that he's fussy and I'm hoping today isn't one of them. I'm not in the mood for that. My mom should be home early this afternoon, that means I'll get to go to bed early.

I just got up, and I was already thinking about going to sleep, what a life.

When I had an outfit picked out for him, I carefully pulled his arms into the sleeves and pushed the pants up his legs. Asher kept kicking at me, and I realized I had forgotten to change his diaper.

A loud groan left my mouth as I had to take off his pants and then untie his diaper. My mother decided we were going to be the family that uses cloth diapers, which seemed extra but I guess that'll save the environment.

I threw the dirty diaper into the hamper and realized we only had one clean diaper left so I'd have to start the other ones in the washer. That sucked because Lucas hadn't put his clothes into the dryer yet and I'd have to move them. I'm aware that it doesn't actually hurt me to move his clothes, but would he do it if they were my clothes? Probably not.

Finally, Asher is changed for the day, and we're ready to go downstairs. I don't have a lot of time before my class starts, so I have to hurry to move clothes to the dryer and then start the load of diapers. Asher is crawling around his playpen when I sit down on the couch and put my headset over my head, leaving one ear out so I can listen to Asher.

The way my online classes work is that I sit with a headset on and the professor goes through some of the powerpoints for each chapter. We can take notes but usually, I pull up our upcoming test in a separate window and take it as I listen to the lecture. Today all I had to do was listen, my first class was Sociology, and it had been relatively easy so far. I had an essay due at noon, so that was my main focus for right now.

Midterms would be soon, but I felt like I was in a good position. I was good at setting aside time to study and actually doing it, God knew it kept me busy and away from thinking about other things. Instead of working out in the mornings like I used to it's changed to the afternoon since I can't leave Asher in the house alone. One of my parents usually gets home around five which means I run or work out while the sun is setting and it's always a beautiful view.

As I sat there writing my paper for my Composition I, class I'd occasionally peer around the computer screen at Asher. He was probably getting hungry, but I was almost done, so I decided to keep trucking, and he could wait a few more minutes.