Before getting to today’s adventures, let me start out by mentioning that this weekend Mama Monkey and I went on our first date since the little guy was born. I’ve been wanting to see Avatar, so we started off with the 1:20 show at Silver City’s 3D Imax. It wasn’t high art or anything, but I had a hell of a good time at that movie. One of the most entertaining films I’ve seen in a while. I’ll leave it to the critics to discuss the shortcomings (most of what they say is accurate), but it was still well worth the money. Or in this case, well worth the gift card!
After that we went to our favourite Vietnamese restaurant, New Mee Fung on Booth. Had the usual: rice paper “roll your own” platters. Yum!
Dates aren’t going to be coming fast and furious now, but we’ll get to some more soon enough.
Day 20
I had a late night last night. He had an early morning (4:00am). The family crossed paths as Alex attempted to hand him over to me and I had to beg for bedtime instead. They eventually made it back to bed, but it was not a good start to the day.
He ended up having his “real” wake-up a bit later than usual, at 9:00-ish. As I set him up with some activities, I called Grammy, who has been on a “Mondays and Fridays” visiting trend. Sure enough, she planned to swing by, this time a bit earlier. I only had an hour to an hour and a half to keep him occupied. But it was tough. He was overtired still, and wasn’t really happy with ANY activities, nor with being held. All I could do was stay patient, try to be kind and fun for him, and wait for reinforcements.
Shortly after Grammy arrived, we started trying to convince him it was sleeptime. He was too excited for it to work for me, and then Grammy calmed him down quite nicely before handing him back to me for the final stage. I knew he was absolutely exhausted, but he was struggling. It breaks me heart a little bit when he squirms to get away from me or adjust his position, and then starts to cry, but experience has taught me that he’s really just fighting the sleep more than anything. Patiently sang him some songs, and each squirm and cry got less frantic, until he finally fell asleep.
Brief frightened moment when Balu barked loudly and woke him up, but some back-rubbing and shushing put him back under for over an hour.
Had some of my mom’s egg-salad sandwiches for lunch (make no mistake, I’m aware that my mom is taking care of me while we’re both taking care of Cole! I don’t mind one little bit!), and then I went for a nap while she listened for him to re-awaken. Ahhh… nap… didn’t think it was going to work out for me as I struggled toward sleep, but somehow I must’ve made it there.
Spent a bit more time hanging out with Grammy, then she helped out while I co-ordinated Cole and the dogs for a walk at the dog park.
I’m glad it wasn’t too cold, because the walk was about an hour and forty-five minutes. Yowza! The bootprints re-frozen into the paths created a crazy bumpy surface, meaning that the stroller was probably the suboptimal choice for transportation. I had the Mei Tei, but since I committed to the stroller I just stuck it out. He eventually fell asleep, though I have no idea for how long. I THINK it was the better part of an hour.
By the time I got home, his Mom was there waiting for us!
–
On the “exciting developments” front: in the front entryway, he said his first truly babbly sentence. Full of different vowel sounds and modulation, instead of the usual “mem mem mem mem pfffbt” we usually get out of him. It was so cool to hear him say a fake sentence! Alie got a bit wet-eyed from the happiness and wonder of it all, which of course makes my heart go all “boom boom boom”-like. She’s the best!
I have no plans for tomorrow. Gonna wing it. And THAT is a recipe for disaster.
