My son subconsciously hates me. I'm sure of it.

I may or may not have pushed Lincoln off the bed in my sleep the other night. I'm leaning toward the "may" part of the previous statement. What I am going to say from here on out, I am not proud of. In fact, I should be stripped of my father certification that I earned in my two semesters at the Salt Lake Community College.

One room, two twin sized beds. To maximize mattress breadth and width, Cathi slept with Calder and I with Lincoln. A tough decision, but one that had to be made.

Sleeping with Lincoln is rough. Real rough. It's a little like sleeping with that baby kangaroo from the Warner Brothers cartoons. You know the one - Sylvester thinks is actually a giant mouse and he ends up taking an endless pounding. I hate when I play the role of Sylvester. Suffewin Suckatash!

Lincoln is a restless sleeper. He kicks, springs and flops like he is in a retarded ballet about a football game gone wrong. Laying next to him, my body became a punching (and kicking) bag. He may be the first seven year old to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee - in his sleep.

With each waking jab, I would gently move him back over to his side of the bed. With each waking jab, my gentleness decreased at about a 10% rate, until it was, at last, not a gentle moving at all.

I don't remember actually shoving my son off the bed while he slept. It had to be a subconscious, or rather, unconscious, or rather, a conscious-less-ly dip-wad move on my part. The only thing I remember is saying aloud as Lincoln flopped to the floor was, "OH NO!" And it was not an "oh no" like Lincoln had just fallen off a cliff. It was more of an "oh no!" like, "what have I done?!"

It was 2:30 in the morning.

I'll never forget Lincoln's puppy dog eyes and crocodile tears as he looked up at me from the hard, dirty floor. Actually - now get this - it was such a sad moment, Lincoln looked up at me with crocodile eyes and puppy dog tears! No, no - his eyes were even sadder than that. He looked up at me like a puppy dog about to be drowned in crocodile tears... and then gnawed by crocodile teeth into puppy mush. Now that's how sad it was.

I helped him back to bed and put him on the other side of me. That way, if I inadvertently shoved him, he would simply go headfirst into the wall - and I would feel much less guilty.

I laid in bed, unable to sleep for over an hour. What kind of father was I? My scrawny, innocent Lincoln would not hurt a fly. (Unless of course, it was a fly that looked like an ant, in which case, he would probably torture it until it screamed for mercy)

I am coming clean. I (probably) did it. In the middle of the night, I (probably) pushed my son off the bed like he was a farting Richard Simmons. He never knew what hit him. I wouldn't be surprised if he hated me for the rest of my life.

It's a good thing that he didn't remember a second of it in the morning.