We've Got to Get Right Back to Where We Started From

Friday, August 13, 2010

Blogging while Baby Watching

Baby K is currently enjoying himself by emptying out every drawer and cabinet in our kitchen, thus providing me with some uninterrupted blogging time. Hard to believe that one year ago tomorrow, my in-laws got off the plane and invaded our home; Baby K was one month from arriving, we were enjoying a beautiful and relatively humidity-free summer, and I was blissfully unaware of the ugly side of infancy.

I'm working on a post to commemorate the birth and early days of Baby K, but as he turns 11 months old, I'm struck by the things I really didn't know. I truly didn't think he would sleep so little. In such spurts, as he is known to do. I didn't know how fast the time would go, even though some days felt like an eternity. The days are long, but the years are short, says my friend Jen. She had her second child a month after I had Kai, and I continue to marvel at how she was able to juggle a 2 year old and an infant. I was barely able to take care of Kai and myself!

Tonight will be the first time I do not put baby K to bed. I will be in an air-conditioned movie theatre with my friend Jill (wife of Phil, who I woke up this morning when I called their house around 8:30, and despite this he was freaking hilarious, as he always is); we are going to see Eat, Pray, Love. The husband will be in charge of bedtime and all its rituals. I am anticipating that Kai will either cry hysterically until I get home or until he passes out. Both thoughts fill me with dread, but I know we have to start making the break of bedtime and mom.

In other random news, we get a new washing machine today, to replace the one whose motor ran non-stop for about 6 hours yesterday, filled with water, almost flooding our basement, and making me think our house was haunted. Every time I had to open the lid, I expected some poltergeist to come wailing out. So we are all a little low on clean laundry, but hopefully the situation will be remedied soon.

Because of the insane heat and humidity, we have basically not left our house for the past 2 weeks, except for outings to the air conditioned mecca of target and dave's. Thus we have no encounters with toddling bruce, wacky library patrons, cooing hispanic grandma's or any other neighborhood folk to share. Although, grandma did take Baby K to the local splash park yesterday (same location as Aunt Helen's tree) where 3 young african-american girls positively gushed over Kai (according to grandma, they petted him, complimented his eye color and repeatedly said he was the cutest baby they had ever seen). Thus his fan club begins.


3 Comments:

Blogger vikki said...

you left out the third possibility for S's first foray into bedtime, which is: baby K will drift peacefully to sleep without so much as a murmur. it is not only possible, i daresay it is likely. the things they do for their fathers are positively perverse. this is why, with each baby, the before-bedtime feeding was the first to go. bedtime is a lot quicker and easier when dad does it, at least in the beginning.

in my experience, white people act like other people's children are untouchable, but everybody else loves them. in particular, hispanics, chinese, and middle easterners are truly delighted by children and fawn over them with enthusiasm. a rather telling cultural difference, i think.

have fun at the movies!

1:48 PM

 
Blogger MedusaJ said...

Kai is getting his pimp on early.

11:59 PM

 
Blogger JHM said...

well, vikki, your possibility proved true. kai did cry for about 2 minutes, but then put his little head down and went to sleep. un-fucking-believable. i mean, really. we are, as of last night, officially done with the before-bedtime feeding.

i also agree with your observation on how different cultural groups behave towards children. however, italians do not ascribe to the typical white behavior. they could not get enough of kai in italy. every single place we went, he was the object of absolute adoration and much fuss. of course, he was delighted and responded with his cute little smile and winks, which just made them go even more gaga. it was truly wonderful to observe and has made me much more effusive in my demonstrations of affection for other babies. except for the ugly ones.

11:25 AM

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home