mr. mom

today i got to play with charley just about all day - she took a HUGE nap at my moms which allowed me to run out and grab a way overdue haircut. i love playing with her and spending saturdays with her...i am going to MISS HER LIKE CRAZY when i am in DC. :( i decided to go to DC a while ago and i am beginning to regret this decision. four days away from my baby girl is A LOT, but at the same time I don't want to be so overly attached that i can 'never' leave'her...honestly i know she will not be affected in any way by my absence, even though i'd like to think otherwise! :) i am lucky that my husband can step up and is really a good involved daddy...I truly trust my husband and his ability to care for her ---HOWEVER i totally want to get a nanny cam to watch the antics of our version of 'daddy daycare' ---

here's what i know:
1. any time i have left the two of them alone, i always come back to a house that is destroyed. i'm talking toys spread from kitchen to bathroom. food and cups all over the place. there has even been a case where the sunday paper was involved (not pretty)
2. gary doesn't dress charley. i leave clothes out for him to put on her. if the outfit is not 'simple' enough he improvises (which is always interesting) sometimes he pulls out clothes that i didn't know she had... mostly when he is in charge charley is sporting only a diaper and there are 2-3 food covered shirts in the floor.
3. gary still gags when he has to change a poopy diaper. i mean he dry heaves and struggles through the whole ordeal. he will have at least 2 a day...sooooo...
4. gary has only bathed charley 2-3 times by himself. i bet the bath will be thrown out altogether and he just tries to spritz her with some body spray each day -- kinda like he handles his own personal hygiene.
5. gary feeds and gives charley whatever she wants to eat, or whatever he is eating. so unless gary becomes a vegan over the next 48 hours, charley will be addicted to big macs and beef jerky by next saturday.
6. apparently only the person who carried the baby in her womb is capable of hearing the child's every movement throughout the night. i'll probably be 7 hours away and still be able to hear charley cry before he does...
7. Gary has never done daycare 'drop off' - this is where your heart breaks for a few minutes everday...she'll be unenrolled by next week and he'll have quit his job to take care of her.

feel free to check in with gary this week..i know that quote says 'it takes a village to raise a child"...i'm pretty sure they never intended for the village idiot to help out (by himself at least)

round and roud it goes, where it stops nobody knows...

what a difference a year makes.

really though, what a difference a baby makes.

it is incredible to digest that a year ago today i was checking into the hospital completely naive to the role I was stepping into. neither gary nor i could have guessed this is what parenthood is. i can't help but think about that scene in the movie Parenthood where steve martin realizes the truth behind metaphor that 'life is rollercoaster' and he envisions the room around him spinning as though he was buckled down into a whirling roller coaster car...it's absolutely true...this whole parenthood ride is a roller coaster.

during pregnancy i slowly climbed that scary hill completely blind to the track that lay before me. tons of anticipation built inside of me and sometimes if i strained i could kind of see what was ahead --- even so it always scared me to death. then suddenly, with little warning on may6, 2008 i hurdled down a hill, screaming, hands flying wildly above my head and my face making a god awful expression that was inevitably caught in a unsuspecting snapshot that i could buy for 25.99. since that day i have been thrown side to side, up and down, jerked and pulled, sometimes with overwhelming joy and sometimes with indescribable fear. at times i could sit back and enjoy the ride, while other times it was all i could do to not to throw myself from car. all the while, i've been strapped down in a filthy, germy car covered in some other person's puke and urine (admittedly my own urine too), with food crumbs all over the place...not to mention my hands clutching a bar that doesn't let me steer.

i am still in the car waiting for the next turn or loop or 150 foot drop that shoves my stomach into my throat...but i somehow how know in the back of my mind that it is all worth it and, just like riding a roller coaster, i will LOVE the experience when it is all over with..... and who knows i might someday jump back in line to do it all over again (depends on how long that line is...i'm getting old, you know). but if i don't get back in line when i get off this ride, i'll just amble around the amusement park dressed in an air brushed t-shirt, plastic visor, and a fanny pack carrying a coffee in one hand and an oversized bag full of useless crap in the other --trying to find the bathroom.
happy birthday charley anne.