Short-Handed

Strange weekend. Not really busy, but short-handed. The wife had to leave to visit a friend for the weekend for important but irrelevant reasons. She took the Little One with her because her friend has three daughters of her own, and they’re all good friends. And probably too because I’ve often said that watching the Little One is easy. Watching Patch is easy. Watching the Little One and Patch at the same time is … somewhat more challenging. And since C will be gone for a little over two days, well, she took one of the little ’uns off my hands.

So it’s me and Patch the whole weekend. Me and a ten-month old.

We started off good. The wife and the Little One left around 4 pm on Friday. I let Patch roam with plenty of toys, plenty of cushions laying about, and the stairs, teevee, and outlets gated off. Made myself a frozen dinner. Gave her a bottle and put her down at 8. Then, I worked a bit on the website, read some of my Silence book, channel surfed around 10 to see if there was anything worthwhile on.

Then, it started.

Patch began crying, and crying, and crying. Now, she’s got about four teeth on the bottom, and one on top, but there’s a whole bunch just under the surface waiting to come up. So, first, I try to console her, calm her down, then put her back in the crib. No dice. Fifteen minutes later I’m back in soothing an overheated baby. I put on the plastic finger thing, rub Orajel over it, and rub it over her gums and teeth. Which she hates. But tolerates. I put her down. Immediately the screaming resumes.

The wife calls from Pittsburgh. She’s just arrived. I tell her that Patch is on the warpath. She tells me to give her some baby Tylenol. Normally, my wife’s the nurse at home, so I have to search through all the medicines we have stocked up, finally finding an unopen liquid baby Tylenol, search for a dropper, and give her half the recommended dosage. Being a child of LE and C, she’s used to taking medicine. Within ten minutes, just past 11:30, she finally quiets in the crib.

Yesterday was a good day. After her morning bottle, I put the little Apache down for a nap around 9. Then, I head to the basement, balance the checkbook, pay a couple of bills, check my library card online, gather the books that are due, make a list of some items we need from Rite Aid (floss strips for the Little One, Emergen-C vitamin powder, among others), get some checks signed to deposit in the bank. Then, I get the baby at 10:30, feed her, and take her on my errands.

One of my favorite joys in life is running Saturday errands with Little One. It’s one of our bonding moments, actually, our weekly one-on-one time. We hit all the usual suspects: dry cleaners, bank, post office, a local library, maybe Barnes and Noble. She works the applicable proprietors for lollipops and candies, just like a born salesman. We cap it off with a slice or two at her favorite pizzeria (it has large black wooden stools to sit on) or a sandwich at Blimpie’s (which she still calls “Blinkie’s” like she did as a two-year old). But Little One’s three hundred miles away, so now it’s Patch’s turn to be initiated.

She handled it marvelously! Six errands: post office, library, bank, B&N, Rite Aid, and a Chinese restaurant, in that order, in about two hours. She got a little fussy about having to keep getting in and out of the car, and got a little vocal in the stroller at B&N, but other than that she was delightful and smiling. Slept a good two hours once we got home, too, which allowed me to eat my chicken and broccoli and watch a DVD.

Bought and borrowed a couple of DVDs which I may write about in the next couple of days: the 1979 teevee miniseries of The Martian Chronicles (I know, I know, but it’s nostalgic), the documentary Into Great Silence, and an awesome but uncharacteristic favorite of mine from my late teen years, the charming Evil Dead II. Bought two Rush CDs, also, which I may post on. So much to write, so little time.

Put in about three hours with the website this weekend; I would like to do more with the relative free time I have this weekend, but it’s tough. I’d like to put two more hours in later today while Patch naps. Before I started this whole web project I figured I could do it in about 40 hours, or a full-time work week. Problem is, snatching an hour here, an hour there, takes time. I estimate I’m a little past twenty hours invested, and I really have been doing this for three, three-and-a-half weeks. So my revised start-up date is August 15, regrettably. I’ll keep you all informed as D-Day arrives, or, for a better metaphor, as the countdown clocks reaches zero.

Just did some grocery shopping with Patch in teeming rain. Had an old lady chastise me at the checkout lane for not having my daughter all swaddled up like a newborn (“It gets cold in the frozen food section!” she tells her neighbor, within my earshot). I bought Little One one of those foam dart blow guns (“don’t hit your sister!”), but C says she’s been a bad girl last night so I’ll have to hide it for a couple of days.

Anyway, the girls should be leaving Pittsburgh by 2, which means they’ll actually leave by 3, and hit the highway by 3:30. It’s a six-hour drive with no traffic, but the weatherman says there’s a lot of rain on the eastern seaboard today, so I’ll estimate their arrival home to be somewhere around 11 pm. We’ll all get in bed by midnight, so we’ll all be exhausted tomorrow when the little ’uns get us up around 6. So that means I’ll have to be as productive as possible today, while entertaining good ole’ Patch.

Hopefully something of substance tomorrow.

Yours, LE.