Brief weekend summary

I love going in to work on Saturday mornings.  In the same sort of way I'm looking forward to my vasectomy later this year.  And yes, I don't doubt I'll be blogging about that when it happens, too.  I don't get the opportunity to use the word 'scrotum' on the internet very often.

Saturday morning:

12.30 am: sick and tired of doing laundry so I leave it folded on the kitchen table and hope that it magically puts itself away by the time I wake up.  Which I lament to myself, en route to bed, will be sooner than I'd like since I'll be spending the morning at work.

2.30 am: elbowed gently awake by a loving wife.  "Si, do you wanna change a diaper?  I'm kinda soaked here."  Amy, having just sated our infant's hunger for Count Boobula breakfast cereal, was promptly repaid for her time and effort by having that same generous bosom soaked in most of the nutrients so recently ingested.  (The antibiotics for Tavish's UTI are prone to induce gastrointestinal sensitivity.  Which, in our boy, means more of the same.)  So I lugged him to the nursery, prepped the new diaper, readied two pre-moistened baby wipes drawn fresh from the wipe warmer on the change table (spare no expense!), and removed the offending soiled Pamper. 

To be promptly rewarded with a feculent arch of golden-brown effluence, white-speckled with milk curds and powered by such gaseous explosiveness as had been intimated by early evening rumblings and whose warning had obviously gone unheeded, else more care would have been taken.  The changing pad, the table, the floor, the closet curtain nearly half a room away: nothing was spared.  Save, ironically, the new diaper.

With a freshly cleaned and clad backside, the infant was deposited in his crib, there to await a third set of clothes, and there did he decide to continue with his oral emissions, adding to the layers of chin smegma that permeate our waking hours: Eau de Bile is the ubiquitous aroma in our house.  Add to that a hint of Mangy Dog and you're left with an inkling of the general state of affairs in which we reside.

Clean, clad and back in his bassinet in the bedroom.  (Amy told me the next day that she could hear my restrained fury in the sound of my breathing from the next room.  I was VERY proud at how I didn't blow up.)

7.00 am: get up later than expected and head to work of a Saturday morning.  I got two items of the five crossed off my to-do list and then head home to pick up the rest of the family.  Glenn the Transmission Guy has agreed to meet us at his shop on a day off in order for us to pick up the Volkswagen.  Frankly, if somebody were going to pay me a healthy four-figure sum, I'd be willing to open up early too.

Domestic bliss and more laundry and dishes were the order of the day for the rest of Saturday.  And raking the front yard.

Sunday:

5.45 am: fifteen minutes before my alarm was set to go off to get up and walk the dog (in my on-going efforts to bond with the jowly mutt), the plaintive cry of a toddler wakes me from across the house. His dreams inundated by bits of fluff or jagged pine cones or similar terrors.  I schlump across the house and climb in to his bed in an attempt to placate the Flora Demons.

7.00 am: the boy is still awake in bed and we retreat to the living room sofa where he promptly falls asleep on me.  I enjoy that.

7.45 am: the phone rings.  It is on the coffee table, juuuuuust out of reach.  I ignore it and go back to sleep.

7.47 am: my cell phone rings in my coat pocket in the front closet.  It's set to a catchy ring tone called 'Walkin' Around' and although still tired, I find myself inadvertently bopping my head to the ringing.  I am both relieved and let down when it stops ringing.  Call it bemused and you've sort of got it.

8.30 am: my wife checks the call display and calls my brother (the 7.45 & 7.47 culprit) back, finding out that he and Granny are coming over before going shopping for his new furniture.  He takes possession of his new house this Friday.

11.00 am:  uncle and Granny leave with our toddler, promising to feed him and bring him home in time for his nap.  I immediately start to think of how much laundry I can get done while they're gone.

1.00 pm: the trio returns, Declan gets put down for his nap, gets up again crying after about a half hour and is a miserable little bugger for most of the rest of the day.  At least by his standards.

4.00 pm: we go grocery shopping while Amy feeds the infant and Declan flirts with every pretty girl in Superstore.  And even plays peek-a-boo with a surly biker dude in the checkout.

6.30 pm: Dex and I take his wagon for the one hour round trip to Blockbuster to get a movie -- for AFTER he goes to bed.  Dad wants some down time before the weekend's out.  Ten minutes into the expedition, he realises there is dirt and random tree sprinklings in the bottom of the wagon.  "BUGS!"  Though somewhat comical, his splayed feet thrust up and out to either side of the wagon, combined with the look of terror on his face, induce me to pick him up and give him a shoulder ride for the rest of the trip.  The walk home is the same, the wagon serving only to hold A History of Violence.  I don't catch on to how funny that movie selection is until much later that night.

8.45 pm: Dex is bathed and bedded and Mom and Dad can watch a movie with a sleeping infant.  Until he wakes up and pukes and fusses through about 30% of it.  Amy got a coconut oil shoulder rub at the end, when Tavish was content to flail uncontrollably on a blanket on the floor.

10.47 pm: I go to bed with my wife, resting content in the knowledge that there isn't enough dirty laundry in the entire house to fill a single load.

A small victory, but one I cling to.

Comments

[rick]

To make a happy fireside clime
To weans and wife,
That's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life.

Burns

[Grampa]

How fondly I remember those days of wedded bliss and child rearing. This is another advantage to grandparenthood; memories don't get you up in the middle of the night.