Today went pretty smooth, except that he had no late afternoon nap. He’s slipping into being a 2-nap guy, but the timing is all wrong. He’s more than ready for the next nap after each 2 hours awake, but he fights the 3rd nap so hard (even harder than the 1st two) that it doesn’t really work out.
Morning: Mama Monkey had already been up with the little guy for an hour and a half before I rolled my sorry ass out of bed (thanks, Alie!). So I had very little difficulty entertaining him for a little while. I could see that he was falling asleep as we were walking around, so I fed him a little bit and then let him crash out on my chest. This time I had the remote handy and could see the TV. I napped for about half an hour with him (warm, cuddly little child on your chest? Who WOULDN’T sleep?) and channel surfed for a bit. As it turns out, we had to get the show on the road at 11:00 to make it to a swimming meet-up with the June Mommies in Barrhaven. So I broke the cardinal rule of parenting and woke a sleeping baby.
But I did it gently. And he already had an hour and a half, which is twice his normal amount. So I didn’t feel too bad.
Mid-Day: As you’ve guessed if you’ve been reading this, I’m not good at the “organizing” part of things. Not in terms of scheduling, but in terms of managing myself, Cole, and the various “things” I need to bring around in the diaper bag and otherwise. When the weather is relatively warm like today, I’m tempted to just do without the toque and boots (he doesn’t really need them with the car), which would help a bit. But since it wouldn’t help ENOUGH, I just go ahead with them.
In any event, at the pool the guy was surprised that I wanted the special needs/family changeroom. I’m like, “Hello? Can you not see that he must be carried, etc? A narrow bench isn’t going to cut it.” From there I took a brute force approach. Into the changeroom, throw everything on the floor in a huge heap. I’ve got blankets on top of boots on top of swim trunks, in a pile that I’m hoping I’ll be able to navigate on-demand. Off with the little guy’s clothes, on with his swim diaper. Which I put on backwards the first time. Remedied when I saw that the illustration on the diaper showed a “drawstring” on the front like board shorts might have. Off with my clothes (one hand hovering near his prone form as much as possible to avoid rollover). The pile of stuff is much bigger.
Now what?
I didn’t want to leave him sitting by himself although his sitting is pretty good. Tile floors and wood benches are just the kind of recipe for severe injury that I’d rather avoid. So, baby in one arm, I go out to the locker area and try to find an empty locker. 10 attempts later and I find one. Back to the changeroom. As much random crap as I can possibly fit into one fist, then back to the locker and dump it unceremoniously in the bottom. Back to the changeroom. And so on. 5 trips and a vague semblance of “some” organization later (his clothes made it to the top shelf, along with the shampoo which I’d need shortly) and I had a locker crammed full of crap, a lock in place, a baby in one arm, and in an inefficient grip, 2 towels and some shampoo in the other.
Out to the pool area.
But wait, shower. I’m remembering the protocol, and pre-pool shower is required. Back into the locker area. But I see no shower! Out into the pool area again, looking around (some pools have showers on deck, don’t they…??) but no luck. OK, into the men’s changeroom. THANK GOD IT WAS THE MEN’S CHANGEROOM! I didn’t look all that carefully; saw a symbol for a shower and walked in, only to get an eyeful of naked men everywhere showering. Can you even imagine if it had been the women’s changeroom? Even worse, the June Mommies probably noticed me coming on deck and were watching. They would have been horrified (yet, probably highly amused) if I walked into the wrong door.
Swim time was fun. Lots of activities for him to engage in, in addition to the usual simulated swimming. There were big foam mats which ended up being his favourite thing. First with all the babies sitting/crawling on it together, and later when he was solo and I pulled him over the water. He was SO delighted with this, as though he were independently soaring above the surface of the water. So happy-looking! Awesome. 
Only one mishap. As we were simulating swimming, I was having him go around all the obstacles in the pool (there were many) and I lifted him up in the air and then plunged him back down in a diving motion (thus avoiding a pool noodle). This could have been disastrous because a) submerged his face a bit; b) I did it kinda fast and hard…. whoops…. I could hear one or two astonished gasps from the surrounding mommies indicating that yeah… it was possibly a bit hard. Thankfully my little trooper just blinked a bit and we carried on. Way to go, monkey! Helping dad save some face!
Come to think of it, though, it was surprising how little activity some of the other little ones in the pool (not just talking about June Mommies here) were engaged in. With all those toys, balls, and SPACE to explore, there was a lot of just floating. I’m thinking that this is partially the perspective of a dad rather than a mom. Maybe this is part of the “male influence” people talk about… we do stupid shit like splash their faces in the pool that would horrify the moms.
June Mommies are a nice bunch. It’s cool to see some of the more advanced kids, knowing “this is what Cole will be doing shortly!” They are very accomodating of my doofussery, which is also good. And they know things like, “the session ends at 1:00″ which I never think to check on.
Getting ready to leave was just as much of an exercise in disorganization. For lack of a better strategy, I just did the reverse. Took all the crap out of the locker, piled it up in a changeroom, and sorted through it as we were getting ready. By 1:20 we were on the road.
Late Afternoon: Car nap. As predicted. I almost blew it, though. Was STARVING by 2:00, so I went to a McD’s drive-thru. Yeah, that was dumb. Between the loudspeaker’s harsh tones and my own loud voice while ordering, he woke up. And it looked like he was GOOD and awake. But I tooled around the block once, and he fell back into a fairly light sleep. Light sleep is better than no sleep, so I made my way home, reasoning that if he woke up I would just let him.
He was stirring at around 2:45 so I called Alie to find out the strategy (bottled milk vs. waiting for boobles). She decided to come home early, so I just had to keep him amused for a short while. He was quite happy to practice semi-crawling on the mat.
Finished out the afternoon with a walk at the pit. The Dogs need fun, too!
