Our son is four years old and he’s a drunk.

When my son is tired he acts like a drunk. Seriously, whenever we go out to a Christmas party or to Science World or to dinner, anywhere really, and stay too long, OLM (our little monkey) acts like he’s blown over the legal limit.

It can be unsettling, no frightening, to watch. Not only does he slur his words but he also bounces off random objects. Tables, sofas..anything in his path. It’s not like we don’t expect it after a few years of him being mobile but in our sleep deprived brains we mistakenly believe he’ll grow out of it.

And if I’m speaking frankly, I wish I had me a little of that. It would be nice to have the feeling of being drunk without the hangover that comes with it. But actually, I don’t really have the time or energy for it. I prefer just to lay my head down when I’ve reached the point of no return. I wish that would rub off on him.

His erratic behaviour is linked to only one thing. Sleep. Or something else I am entirely unaware of.

You see, when it gets close to the witching hour, whether its nap time or bed time, if we try to push the envelope and stay a little longer or have a little more fun (God forbid we stay later than 9pm anywhere) it’s like this mad, drunken sailor takes over his body.

But we try to laugh it off. I’m not sure if making fun of it is a good strategy or not but in order to deal with the impending doom of getting him into his bed we resort to singing this song. He has of course memorized this little ditty and sings it to himself. But it’s not done a lick of good.

“What do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor? What do you do with a drunken (OLM) early in the mornin’?”

We don’t feed our kid Tequila so put that phone down.

Just kidding. I know you don’t have Social Services on speed dial.

When he’s tired it’s like the coordination in his body disappears. He stumbles, in between running around in circles like a maniac.

Someone once said to me, ‘Why don’t you just let him run around until he falls asleep?’

We tried that. It was like giving him two shots of Tequila in his sippy cup, straight up. At about 10pm he was still running around, falling and bumping and crashing, and rolled over the sofa and on the floor under the table. Never once did I get the impression that he would stop. We gave up close to midnight.

Besides at that point it can be dangerous dealing with someone who is so clearly drunk they don’t know how to control themselves. So we scooped him up, piled into the car where he promptly fell asleep five minutes from home.

So what do you think we should do? I know this post was supposed to be me giving you parenting tips but at this point I’ve got nothing. Aside from getting him to sleep on time and having no life, that is.

Is there such a thing a AA for pseudo drunken preschoolers?

This post is dedicated to The Serious One as he’s been bugging me to tell this story. If I’ve missed anything let me know!