Jefflog

With all of the busyness of managing two small kids, a career, and a nasty viral infection that has rendered my voice hoarse, I can’t always keep track of what else is going on. Case-in-point is today, the sixth anniversary of my wedding in the King County courthouse. I knew the occasion was coming, and had done some preliminary shopping weeks ago although never actually bought anything. Late in the morning, I finally realized that today was the day. I called my wife at work to wish her a happy anniversary.

As I understand things, forgetting a woman’s anniversary is typically tantamount to living in the doghouse for a week, but in my case, the wife had forgotten herself and didn’t realize it either until I called her. Forgetting the occasion is apparently quite a forgivable scenario in my household.

Today, my son is 9 months old. What’s there to say? He’s a lot more manageable than he was even a month ago. He’ll sit down and entertain himself to a fair degree, or let himself be entertained by Maggie or the TV. He’s crawling around pretty good, too, so if he wants to get something, he can get it himself. Eating is going well. Sleeping is…well, that’s still touch and go. And he’s utterly smitten with both of his parents.

It’s gotten so bad that when I’m upstairs working during the day and he’s downstairs with the babysitter, I try to wait until his nap times to go downstairs for lunch or for a snack. If I don’t, he cries and crawls towards me as soon as he knows I’m down, until I pick him up. Then I go about my business while holding him: getting out the sandwich ingredients, putting the bread in the toaster, spreading mustard on the bread, whatever. I’m getting pretty good at doing tasks with a baby in my arms, and he’s pretty good about not trying to grab my mustard. Eventually I’m done and it’s time to go upstairs, and as soon as he realizes I’m going to hand him off to the babysitter, the waterworks start up again. I rush back upstairs as quick as I can, and he quiets down in a minute or so.

Maggie never had any sort of separation anxiety with us. We have had it so easy with her.

I’m learning some tricks to minimize my trips downstairs. I make a carafe of coffee in the morning so I don’t have to go downstairs for my second cup. I’m considering buying a microwave oven to stick up here and essentially bring a pack lunch upstairs every day. I’m perfecting the art of being a hermit.