May look like an incredibly sophisticated mock up, but is actually a really baby asleep with his face planted in my chest. |
Just a major life event, you know--no biggie. Nothing worth mentioning when I'm upset that I can't find the MOTHERFUCKING remote.
Ahem....any-who....
Today starts my gig as a stay at home "dad." The Contrarian is with me for five hours, four days a week while the Brain goes out to fight crime with Uberdude. Their patrols aren't usually too strenuous unless there are super villains in town, so she pretty much gets back by early afternoon and I have the rest of the day to write.
Or, you know, that's the plan, anyway. (Hey you guys have never heard of anything like kids messing up up plans or anything, have you? Cause I'm pretty sure that's just crazy talk, but I may have read something like it in some book or something.)
Today the hope was to post the results of the March poll (enjoy your extra couple of days on that, BTW) and pound out a draft for something going up tomorrow. Then some fiction and then if there was time left over something for one of the other blogs I write for. And then reading before bed. With tea. Earl grey. Hot.
That was the plan.
In reality, there were diapers, and screaming and a desperate nap (first his, then mine) and more crying and why is he eating the hungry caterpillar? does he understand irony already? and there was this thing where he was laughing and crying at the same time because I guess he couldn't decide, and OH DEAR GOD THERE WAS SO MUCH POOP!
I mean the amount of poop doesn't even actually make sense by my limited understanding of physics. I'm pretty sure the geometry doesn't work out that a baby has the volume available to make that much poop without looking like a squeezed toothpaste tube afterward. Unless maybe it is like that expanding foam that they use to put out fires--growing to ten times its size the minute the air hits it.
Don't misunderstand; I love this kid. It's just that he can't even move under his own power yet, and already he commands these swirling vortices of entropy that pull in everything in the house and then fling it back outward in different directions, somehow magically transform anything you thought was in the living room (like ordinary furniture) into play mats and bouncy chair things that all play this fucking mind numbing Animal Fair electronica mix (seriously they ALL play that one song--WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK), and can cause any trash can to overflow with diapers in less than an hour.
Two things have become immediately apparent to me after only a single day of being the stay at home parent to a four month old.
1) My days of pounding out posts at the last possible second are coming to an end--at least for Tuesday through Saturday. I have to get this shit done the day before or it's not going to happen. On paper the schedule works where I pass off the baby the minute mom walks through the door and run straight to my computer in slow motion with an inspirational soundtrack. But like many plans "on paper" it's probably better to realize that my morning is completely gone, and I'm not going to get anything posted that isn't finished by the night before.
2) I need to update my update schedule (so look for that tomorrow.) There is no way in Aries's left testicle (or Poseidon's right) that I am going to be able to watch The Contrarian for five hours, BART out to Diablo Valley College to teach, keep the mess in the sink from becoming sentient, and write my biggest article of the day on Wednesdays. So I have to stare at myself in the mirror and yell at myself "You have to know your limits man! You aren't a superhero. You're just a sidekick. And not only that, you're the sidekick that gets left back at the Hall of Rectitude to take care of babies and clean up diapers! So stop thinking you can do everything. You can't. You have to accept the things you can't change!"
Then I'll cry a little, but I'll know deep down that I'm right, and that I should listen to me.
Aww, Chris! Welcome to fatherhood. OK, welcome to very involved uncle-hood. :) It sounds like you and the Contrarian have your work cut out for you. Would you believe me if I told you things will settle down into some semblance of order? OK, maybe not strict order but something resembling order. Routine possibly.
ReplyDeleteI laugh (with all the aplomb of experience) because I recognize it. I cannot help but wonder how all of this is going to change your writing along with your life. Never doubt--it will. Indelibly and forever. The latter sneaking into the former in insidious ways. Forgive me but I am so going to enjoy watching it. :D
Routined chaos sounds so blissful right now.
DeleteFortunately I have the weekends to catch up/get ahead on writing. I just kind of got sideswiped by this week with everyone telling me "Oh they sleep all the time. You'll be able to write."
Sure they sleep all the time--when they're strapped to my chest and I don't stop walking. Otherwise...not so much.
You had a nap? Jealous. This article made me laugh -in my three years of parenting I have resisted talking about poop on social media and I'm sure you can appreciate what an accomplishment that is. Things get better when the naps consolidate and happen at more regular intervals. Still waiting for that to happen at almost 6 months here but I have hope.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I go for the cheap laughs, don't I?
DeleteHere's hoping he stabilizes a bit in the next couple months.
So... the thing about babies. You can't explain them with physics. It's like their whole digestive systems are tesseracts. Don't think about it, it will just make your head explode. There were days when I wondered if The Kid was going to turn inside out or something.
ReplyDelete(Also, even when both parents are superheroes, I suspect babies are actually supervillains. I don't have any data to support this hypothesis, mostly because I'm too scared to do the research.)
You might be on to something, and that is a terrifying though.
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