Poor baby Zinnia is pulling on her ears and drooling by the bucket, a sure sign of teething. Why God designed babies to go through so much pain this early on in life is beyond me.
Last night, I arrived home at 9:15 p.m. As I walked in the door, I was greeted by a squeal of delight. Zinnia was still up (sadly, this would be the case for another hour and a half) and came, for lack of a better word, sprinting towards me.
It's one of the nice things about being dad. I get to be gone all day, busting my hump for the man, and by the time I arrive home Zinnia is so in need of a break from her mother (and vice-versa) that she lights up like a menorah and toddles towards me, arms in the air in an "Up, up!" command. Our ritual is this: I pick her up, and she grabs a handful of my shirt and secures her position on my forearm. All is once again right in the world.
But last night Zinnie was even more excited than usual. As she bounced towards me, she beamed with delighted happy baby sounds. I held my arms out--the proud papa--and waited for my victorious embrace. But before I could scoop her up, Z. veered to the left ... toward the cat. My face must have dropped, because Jenn laughed and said, "Now you know how it feels." I ignored her comment and decided, as is my wont, to be the mature adult and make myself some buttered toast.
Since Jenn and Zinnia are together 21-22 hours out of the day, Jenn rarely gets to make a grand entrance. Let me back up and repeat that: Jenn spends 21, that's two-one hours a day with a being who leaves a trail of clothes, dirty diapers, singing toys, spit-up, ripped pages from books, half masticated food, and drool everywhere she goes; a being whose neediness is only surpassed by her flair for the dramatic if there is even the slightest delay in her immediate gratification;* a being who, on a good day, will allow Jenn to finish one or two bracelets, read a few pages from her book, or clean up around the house. I honestly don't know how she (and her mama friends) do it.
Perhaps this is a good time to own something. Since Zinnia's birth, I have thus far spent one full day, that's a "one" with no second digit after it--"one" as in the loneliest number--one, lone solitary day with our darling child since her birth. And let me tell you, it was one of the longest fucking days of my life. Not longest as in most difficult or most grueling, just long as in, "Okay, now what should we do." During lulls in action, Zinnie, being the pre-verbal baby that she is, would only look back at me, waiting, waiting, always waiting. To do this day in and day out would drive me out of my sku--I mean, be extremely challenging, old chap.
Star Date--Two Days Ago: Labor day. I went to Starbucks and did some paperwork. Then we--the family Bender-Luki--went for a drive, followed by a pit stop to DQ, and at last back home. Now what? It's mid-day and too hot to play outside. I asked myself what would a good father do, but came up blank. Zinnia toddled across the house, so I followed her; she chased Honey the Cat around the dining room table, and I corraled her; we made for the bedroom for a while to play with--well, it really doesn't matter. We played. She went back out to the living room where her music box was, as well as her singing vacuum cleaner ("We're going to clean the house today, doo-dah, doo-dah ..."), and also a musical laptop, and under the premise that three saccharine-sweet voices chiming in with really bad children's songs are always better than one, Zinnia got all her toys going simultaneously and then--hilariously cute--she looked up at me and beamed as she started to bounce and dance to the cacophony. How could I resist? I walked over to the marimba and added a fourth musical voice to the din. Somehow through it all, Jenn was able to keep reading her book.
Which brings me back to mothers. Probably more than anything else, I am in awe of their multi-tasking ability. If I am in a hurry to get going or Jenn asks me to do something while I'm holding Zinnia, I'll look at her, one part indignant ("Good Lord! Can't you see I'm holding our baby here?") and one part flustered. It's during these times that Jenn--the picture of kindness and patience--says in a tone generally reserved for one's retarded half-brother, "Wellll, you could put her down."
"Oh," I say sheepishly and lower our daughter to the floor. "That's right."
For her part, Jenn can shower with Zinnia, get both of them dried off and dressed, put a load of wash in, do the dishes, prepare a diaper bag for a foray out into the world--but wait!--first she needs to fire off an email, and do all of this while still keeping Zinnia amused/occupied with, say, the magic of the Tupperware cupboard or our child's stuffed kitty. Then, mother and daughter run out to do errands, visit their mama-baby friends, go shopping at Trader Joes, and finally return home where Jenn will wrestle with our sleepless little beast until finally, Zinnia sends some z's floating into the atmosphere. This is always a good time for Jenn to get some jewelry done or straighten the house a bit before her husband (i.e. yours truly) returns home from the aforementioned hump-busting.
By this time, Jenn is often ready for a bit of a baby break. If she's looking particularly haggard, I will lift our daughter up in happy embrace, roll my eyes, and make some sort of helpful comment along the lines of: "What, do I have to do everything around here?"
It used to get a rise out of her, but now only garners a knowing smile.
* Generally, she does this with a wave of tears and then hurls herself to the floor
and buries her face in her hands at the injustice of it all
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