Monkey House

As you may guess by the title, I don’t count weekends as “Parental Leave” days. I mean, we’re both there. I pretend I’m incredibly busy with other very important things so that Mama Monkey can care for the baby.

Er…. I mean….

I find I’m so incredibly busy with important things on the weekend that I’m so glad Mama is there to help out for those 2 days. Har har, Just kidding. She’s the hardest worker in terms of parenting whether or not it’s the weekday or the weekend. Boobs are always on call, even when Cole’s not around… still pumping to do… poor woman. I keep asking her if she feels like a dairy cow, of course reminding her that in my books she is the Radiant Queen of all things Awesome.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not sure if this is about milk, or about sleep.

Little guy was “due” for his nap at around 10:00. Wasn’t showing full signs of sleepiness, until around 10:45, when I started his naptime routine. A half-hour later and he was starting to act over-tired-goofy. Called my parents to ask them to delay their visit a bit because I wasn’t sure when he’d go down for a nap. Another 45 minutes of doing whatever I could, and he was finally looking like exhaustion alone would do the trick!

Ball bouncing… half a bottle of milk… and full wakefulness! What the heck?
Read the rest of this entry »

I must be getting good at this already. Did a few things in what seems to be becoming the normal routine.

I’ll spare you the details and get to the one thing that sort of went wrong today: organizing my outing.

Aunt Shauna came over for lunch, bringing yummy eatable delicacies (Subway sub for the win!). Cole was cute, giving his aunt the bestest smiles he has on tap, some of his “head shaking” monkey-thing, and generally being awesome. As lunch was wrapping up, I initially relieved Cole’s aunt of duty, saying, “OK, we’re going to get ready for our dog walk now; you can head out.” But she didn’t make it out the door before I realized that I could use an extra pair of hands. As a result, she got to watch my disorganized self in full glorious action.
Read the rest of this entry »

Today was day to yesterday’s night.

One exception to an otherwise great day: Cole woke mommy up at 5:00am. She got up, humoured him, played with him, got ready for work, and put him down for his first nap of the day at 7:00am.

He sometimes doesn’t even get up until nearly 9:00am.

So at 7:30am he wakes me up. I’m initially thinking (after looking at the clock), “awesome! I’m up for that coffee/breakfast thing I mentioned yesterday!” Uh, except no. I let him raise his voice a bit, thinking mommy would be to the rescue, and not knowing she had already left for work. Zombie-like, I rise to my feet, collect my protesting son, and walk downstairs. No mommy. Look outside at the driveway… no car. WTH? No car? AT 7:30am?

Then I spot her note, explaining why sleep time is off, and giving me very nice directions for finishing the laundry.

But wait… if that was his first nap… is my day’s game plan screwed?
Read the rest of this entry »

So, somewhat as per my predictions, here’s how the day went. The details are excessive, and possibly only interesting if you can visualize me with Cole. But this is really more for my wife and Cole’s grandparents than anyone else, so read at your own peril:

Woke up at 8:30. Must wake up at 7:30 from now on. Here’s why: I’m incapable of making coffee and eating cereal by the time Cole is unhappy with his current activity (whatever that happens to be at the time.. mat, exersaucer, whatever). He gets unhappy that quickly. I thought to myself, “meh, he can sob a little bit while I eat. A guy’s gotta eat.” But that didn’t work out so well for me. I *did* manage to grab a bowl of cereal (ate with one hand at the counter, Cole in the other arm) but it wasn’t worth it. I’d rather wake up earlier and share breakfast with my wife.

Suffice it to say, from 8:30 – 9:00 I juggled Cole in one arm while trying to get my day started. He wasn’t uncooperative, but I knew he was in the mood to wander and look out the window, not to be on his mat or in some other independence-granting device.

But at 9:00 the shit hit the fan. Not literally. Thankfully.
Read the rest of this entry »