Single Parents Have It Easy

I mean, really, they do. Single parents have it made. What with all their . . . forget it. I can't even pretend for the sake of being a purposeful jerk to try and make this argument hold water. It's just not the case. I can't think of many things I would rather NOT do than attempt to raise these kids by myself. It would be hell.

As you've probably guessed by now, Libby is out of town again. Just for two nights this time (last night was the first), but already I hate being a single parent again. And I have it comparatively easy. I'm a full time homebody. I don't have to work and/or go to school at the same time. If I did, I have a feeling that I wouldn't cope with it very well. Probably I would end up having a mental breakdown--not that I'm ruling that out even now. It might prove an interesting vacation.

Yesterday wasn't a problem. Really, it was just a normal work day where Libby didn't come home before bed time. Once the kids were off to bed, my evening went pretty much as they always do--I had a bowl of cereal, watched a few shows, and went to bed early, figuring I would need the extra sleep if Norah had a rough night. She did have a rather rough night--as did Gabe, for some reason, probably because it is so hot here now and he hasn't really figured out how to regulate his temperature by using just the sheet yet--but I didn't have any extra sleep to show for it. I tossed and turned until around midnight then broke down and took an Ambien to help knock me out. I knew that taking one so late would pose problems for me this morning, but I was nonetheless surprised by how things played out.

About 7:00, I awoke from my coma to the sound of Gabe saying, "I want some chocolate milk" to me from beside the bed. "Uuuuuuuuuhhhgh," I replied. "OK," I added. I got up, figuring that he had just gotten out of bed himself and come to get me. As we went downstairs, I quickly saw that hadn't been the case. He'd obviously been up for awhile. The dining room light was on and about two dozen cars and trains were scattered on the floor. I went into the kitchen to get him a cup for his milk and saw that he'd already plundered the room for anything that struck his fancy to eat.

He'd pulled an apple out and taken one bite of it, then thrown it in the trash, apparently displeased with what it had to offer. Then he attempted to peel a banana, but hadn't had much luck breaking it open properly. Instead, he'd mangled and mashed it until one of the sides split open. I couldn't tell if he got a bite out of it or not before he abandoned it as a lost cause on the butcher block. He had also opened up the cabinet where we keep the cereal and pulled out a pop tart, which he also wasn't able to open. So he moved on to the fridge. The door was still open because he'd pulled open the crisper drawer where we keep the yogurt but couldn't close it again. I didn't find a yogurt cup anywhere, though, so either he gave up when he couldn't find what he wanted or I'll find a surprise somewhere around the house in due time.

I'm not sure how long he was awake, but I'm guessing about a half hour. Frankly, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I LOVE the idea of Gabe getting up on his own and coming downstairs to take care of himself while we continue to sleep. The day that he and Norah can both do that on their own will be a magical day that I look forward to like Triple Christmas. On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure that Gabe can be trusted. The messes, well, they're just par for the course (actually, the kids were well ahead of schedule with their mess making today, so I got a few pictures at 8:00--just thirty minutes after Norah woke up--which I'll share in a moment). But things like the fridge could pose a problem. And then there are the doors to the outside. For the past few months, since Gabe started showing some signs of being able to come downstairs on his own when he's awake, we have made sure to use all of the locks on our doors to keep him from testing his freedom. But the kid has a knack with mechanical devices and a determinated focus that is otherwise foreign to his character when it comes to figuring out how to get at and operate things that he knows he's not supposed to mess with. So, I guess it will just take time for him to convince us that he's ready to be trusted.

Anyway, so the kids got up and around, but, because I took an Ambien at midnight, I was little more than walking dead for the first two hours I was up this morning. I collapsed on the floor in the living room and submitted to letting the kids use me as a climbing/jumping/stacking-things-on-top-of furnishing (after carefully putting a pillow over my junk, since this seems to be the place both of them like to spend the most time jumping or walking on, probably because assaulting it elicits the most amusing response from me). They didn't JUST use me, though, they also went about their business otherwise. Here is photo documentation of what they managed to accomplish during that time.

Norah, two-fisting her bottles amidst the chaos of our floor. The milk bottle I gave her. I'm not sure where the water one came from. We've been missing two of the little water bottles since the beginning of the week. I think she's hoarding them somewhere, but I'm not sure where. At least it's just water in them and not orange juice or milk, I suppose.

Gabe's "ladder." He showed it to me proudly. I know he never actually used it to climb up onto the table because of the lack of screaming. Our table is awful and incapable of handling any weight on its sides. The high chair, the table, and everything on the table would have collapsed to the floor with Gabe in the middle of it if he'd used it. But I know the intention was there, because it always is with him.

Not the most flattering picture of her, I know, and it really doesn't adequately show what I wanted it to--the tables next to the rocking chair. Over the past three days, Norah has focused the entirety of her being into getting behind that rocking chair (a spot, I'm sure some will recall, that she crawled herself into a few times when she first started moving around). Before this, we used the tables and the big round baskets to block off her access. But she's figured out how to use her girth to her advantage, and now she can wedge herself between the chair and the tables and just keep pushing forward until she gets back there. Yesterday, she knocked over the lamp doing this, so I relented and moved one of the baskets to give her free roam. She uses this new access, once in awhile, but still prefers to tabledoze her way back there no matter how many times I pick her up and show her the proper way back there.

In addition to the mess, I also learned a valuable lesson about navigating our house while half-stoned on sleep aids. It's a bad idea. Shortly after Norah got up and I had her changed and suchlike, I began my routine trips back and forth between the living room and the kitchen to gather up whatever breakfast foods I thought I might be able to coax into the kids and arranging them and the kids in such a way as to make them desirable (usually by giving two different food items to them, then, invariably, they both decide that they want what the other has--though this usually only lasts through the first few bites, when they again decide they want what the other has). On the first trip, with a piece of cinnamon toast in hand, I completely miscalculated the lift I had on one of my feet (which seemed unusually heavy this morning), snagged the baby gate, and very nearly fell face first over the top of it onto the hardwood floor in the dining room. Had that happened, this would have been a very terrible morning indeed. Instead, I managed to fling the cinnamon toast into the dining room and awkwardly grab the door frame. This allowed me to "catch" myself by the skin of my leg on the gate and keep from propelling forward.

This is what the top of an accordion style baby gate can do to naked flesh if gravity and coordination are working against you. Also, the gate has a nice new bend to it that it didn't have before.

Gabe did go ahead and eat the toast, though, even after he watched me pick some cat hair off it--but only because I put it in front of Norah first.

After that, the morning began to progress normally. Thankfully. Though Gabe is a bit obsessed with the ouchie on my leg. He keeps insisting that I put a big band-aid on it and refuses to acknowledge the validity of my arguments against it (that band-aids + leg hair = sheer agony--though, as you can see from the picture, I don't have much lower leg hair anymore. I don't have an explanation for this, except that maybe lower leg hair growth is somehow attached to head hair growth, and my body has declared both to be unnecessary to my survival).

Also, I got a little video of Norah walking, just because I haven't really posted much on that subject since she's started to get around with a bit more confidence.

She still has a habit of throwing herself into something when she gets a step or two away from it (as she does when she approaches the couch in the video). This despite numerous instances where the thing she's throwing herself into can't support her weight and they both go cascading into the distance. But I guess she'll learn sooner or later.