hmmm…i can’t picture it. can you?
is this for real??? 2008/06/30
I just received this email:
Dear MomofHenri,
Thanks again for shopping at Toys”R”Us & Babies”R”Us. We’re pleased to tell you that your item(s) has been shipped!
If there are remaining items in your order that were not shipped at this time, you will receive a similar email notification when they ship. You can click on the link below to review the status of your entire order, including any items that may have been shipped separately.
Item: 4484966
Description: Simplicity Kingston 4-in-1 Crib – Chocolate/White
Quantity: 1
Status: Shipped via: FedEx Ground
YOU MEAN HENRI IS ACTUALLY GOING TO HAVE HIS OWN BED?????? I thought this dream would never come true!
and the award for bestest baby ever goes to… 2008/04/28
this is what henri’s weekend consisted of:
saturday: spend all day with mark’s mom and her husband (he’s only met them a couple times before this); come home and go to bed
sunday: travel back and forth between old house and new house, with crap loaded all around him most of the time, while also getting a 2nd tooth and having to take naps in either the car or a brand new location; we also managed to squeeze in a trip to target
you would think by last night around 7 pm, he would not only be completely exhausted, but would also be cranky mccranky pants. but i have to say–he really wasn’t. he is “officially” the best baby in the world, or–at least–the most well-behaved. i mean, transitioning to a new house is worth mild crankiness by itself, let alone the rest of what we put him through… the only time he really got fussy was when that 2nd tooth really started moving in. other than that, it was henri-as-usual (cries when sleepy, hungry or has to burp). i don’t want to count my chickens before the eggs hatch or anything, but we might have the first redhead on our hands who isn’t a threat to his parents’ sanity! note: i did not say that he isn’t stubborn as hell, because he is…he’s just stubborn in a sweet baby, henri kind of way.
Fatherhood (for those postponing fatherhood) 2008/04/14
I have several guy friends/a brother who are, likely (although they haven’t said so to my face), quite surprised that anyone would, more or less voluntarily, take on the job/duty/life-long-commitment of fatherhood. And I was right there with them when I was 29-years+364-days-old. That’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek – it didn’t exactly correspond, to the moment, with my thirtieth birthday – however, it was around that time that I began to think that fatherhood might be A-ok. Actually, it really hit me around the time that I became romantically involved with a woman who happened to be T-minus-two-or-so-months from motherhood.
OK, listen up, here’s the secret:
*… fatherhood isn’t really all that bad…*
Caveats:
- Henri’s cute.
- He’s really very reasonable… for an infant.*
- He stays where you put him (not for long I fear).
- He’s easily heft-able; portable (see above).
- He’s really darn cute.
Subtract a couple of those attributes and I may have a completely different opinion. (Given the self-expiring nature of attributes three and four on the above list, check back with me in a month or two, okay?)
Really, what have I given up? A solid block of 7-8 (or 9, or 10) hours of sleep? Sure, but I’ve given that up voluntarily for weeks at a time. Sleeping in on the weekends is harder but it turns out that you really do get a lot more done when you get out of bed before noon. Henri requires a lot of attention but also likes spending a lot of time on his back admiring his feet. While he’s doing this I can do “productive” things such as lie on my back and admire the insides of my eyelids… or, more likely, watch Top Chef.
And an added benefit of having a kid when you’re 30ish is they’ll be out of the house by the time you’re 50ish when you’re young enough to enjoy the fact that the kid has finally-left-the-g-d-nest!!
*I mean, sure, he’ll take a deep breath and TELL YOU when something is bothering him (i.e. it’s been 2 hours and thirty-ONE minutes since he last ate and that’s really longer than ANY REASONABLE BABY COULD BE EXPECTED TO WAIT, DAMMIT!! AAAAAA-GHE-HE-HE-HE!!!) but, once you give him what he wants, everything is copasetic.
update: we are really moving this time 2008/04/09
we finally found a house that will, um, house all of us. it’s not exactly SUBURBIA…since 50% of the residents were worried about commuting options, i had to let that one go. but there is a [tiny] yard and a [large] patio, plus a thousand rooms to put our crap in.
henri’s room is soooooooooo big i’m considering putting a climbing wall in there (14 foot celings) and maybe one of those plastic outdoor play-thingies, slide and all. also, the h-man will have his own bathroom. how 21st century of us. (though, we will appreciate this as he gets older and older…and older…and older. for now, i think it’ll be more like mark and lee lee have separate bathrooms.)
other perks to the house: 2 separate entertaining areas for fantastic parties (!), an “office” for mark to hide in when the rest of us become too much for him to bear and custom details everywhere, which make me feel like it’s not a rental after all.
p.s. mark your calendars: open house/first party is the weekend of July 4th. details to come via e-vite after we’re settled in.
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