I've been left home alone with the kids before and it has been no big deal. But yesterday was a little different because it inaugurated my life as a stay-at-home parent. Sure, I start my next gig in two weeks, but for two whole weeks...14 days...336 hours...20,160 minutes...Seasons of LOOOOVVEEEE. Doh, sorry. Didn't mean to have my musical theater side of me reveal itself. But for the next two weeks, I will be responsible for the lives of our two kids. No longer can I use my alibi that it was all Lisa's fault for infant negligence as I slather alcohol and cocaine all over Lisa's sleeping body.
I must say that yesterday was a pretty difficult day. The thing that compounded the difficulty is that the kids had my parents around for the past two weeks. And as all grandparents do, my parents loved to pay attention to the kids. Any slight whimper, my mom rushed to them. Any slight moisture, my mom changed their diaper. Any slight sprinkling of household dust, my mom Swifted them. So when they left, I believe I was left with two very well attended to babies.
So what made yesterday so difficult? Here's a brief rundown of my day:
I woke up around 7:30am. I decided I would quickly eat my usual breakfast of oatmeal with blueberries and honey, a cup of coffee, and brisket. Andrew woke up first so I spent a little time with him in the living room. Then around 8:15a Emma woke up. I changed their diapers and clothes. Lisa usually spends a long time figuring out how to coordinate their outfits; I just pulled off whatever was on top of the drawer. Seriously, all of Emma's clothes is pink and Andrew's is blue -- how difficult is it to coordinate (you hear that Lisa?)?
I figured I would feed the kids around 9am. I even thought ahead and premade two bottles of formula and put it in the fridge for quick access. Pretty smart, huh! Around 8:45a, the kids started to get fussy, so I put them in their cages and went to warm up their bottles.
The bottle warmer we have is pretty fancy with a lot of different settings. The warmer has always been on the "room temperature/formula" setting, but I had to change it to the "refrigerated/formula" setting. I put the bottle in the warmer, turned it on, and tried to change the setting. But no matter what I did I couldn't reset it. I unplugged the warmer, hit different combinations of buttons, but nothing. Pretty dumb, huh? By now both kids were crying bloody murder for their bottles. I picked up one of them to calm them down as I continued to fumble with the warmer. I decided just to warm it up on the room temperature setting and hoped for the best.
Guess what? The kids refused the bottles because it was still too cold. So I popped the bottles back into the warmer on a lower setting. Teasing the kids with the bottle made them angrier. Andrew crinkled his nose with such anger that his nostrils eventually became parallel with his eyebrows.
With both bottles at a proper temperature, I placed both kids into their little baby seats. I raised their bottles into their mouths and sighed relief. Except Emma would not stop crying. Now she was gurgling as she was screaming because formula was spilling out from her mouth. To appease her, I took her out of the her seat and fed her in my arms. But that meant I had to stop feeding Andrew. So Emma was now happily being fed, but Andrew now had his nostrils on his forehead.
I eventually got both of them fed and burped. Glancing at the clock, it was getting close to 10am which was about the time for their nap. I placed Andrew in his crib, and he fell asleep. I placed Emma in her crib, and she cried. During this time, I went to wash up and get dressed. Ten minutes later, she was still crying. I checked on her, patted her tummy, and left the bedroom. During this time, I went to take a dump. Eight hours later, she was still crying (I was constipated...so sue me).
When I finally got Emma to nap, Andrew woke up 10 minutes after. So I ended up playing with him for about fifteen minutes and decided that I would have to get Emma up too. Although she ended up sleeping for a little over 30 minutes, I needed to have them on a similar schedule still. This time I fed them right away to avert any feeding disasters. The second feeding went much smoother. Except for the fact that they both spit up on me.
The rest of the day consisted of the kids crying to be picked up. I would pick Andrew up, and Emma would cry. I would pick Emma up, and Andrew would whine. Yet there were certain points in the day that I was able to entertainment them at the same time. The kids seemed to enjoy listening to me play the piano and read books to them. The kids seemed to not enjoy me cavorting with vagrants and burning Styrofoam in the kitchen.
But I would have to say the highlight of the day happened to me right before Lisa came home. I was lying down on the baby blanket with Emma and Andrew on either side of me. The kids were listening to me read a book to them. Andrew had his arm on my shoulder, and Emma had her hand around my neck. Despite all of the exhaustion and frustration I had all day, it's moments like these that you remember.
At around 4pm, Lisa opened the front door and returned from work. I had Emma flying like an airplane above my head, and she was laughing. Lisa asked me, "How was your first day home?" And just as I opened my mouth to answer, Emma opened her mouth to spit up on my face. Ah yes. It's moments like these that you remember.
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