This entry was written September 18, 2001.
Today, Eric is back to his usual self. He played by himself in his playpen, and then dropped off to sleep on his own. And he's been sleeping much of the day. David suggested that perhaps he is like a TV baby, being played by twins (or even triplets): yesterday it was Clingy Baby's turn, and today it was Sleepy Baby. Who knows what tomorrow may bring.
So I find it difficult to describe David's level of involvement with Eric to people. First of all, I find it interesting that so many people ask about it (nobody seems to ask him how involved I am). And I find that no answer is satisfactory. If I say, "Oh, he's very involved, he loves being a father," I feel like it sounds like I'm lying or justifying his lack of involvement--or like I'm some straight woman who thinks "very involved" means he plays with the baby for ten minutes and hands him off the minute he needs a diaper change. And that simply doesn't describe David--he often plays with the baby for up to eleven minutes!
I still love sleeping with Eric, but am dealing with one challenge: he crowds me to the edge of the bed. Very like a cat that way. No matter how careful I am to place him in the dead middle of the bed so that I have plenty of room to sleep and roll over, when I wake up Eric is plastered against me and I am clinging to a six-inch strip on the edge of the bed with some of my parts hanging off. Sometimes it's easier to actually get out of bed and get back in in a new position than to try to roll over.
One night I dreamed I was reading a book under a tree, and got chilly in the shade, so I moved into the sunshine, but even in the sunshine I was cold all over except that I could feel one ray of sunshine on my left shoulder. When I woke up, I had kicked off all the covers and was freezing in a cold breeze from the window, except for my left shoulder, which was being kept warm and cozy by Eric, snuggled up sweetly in his Snoopy footed sleeper.
Our parrot Gracie has started saying "Baby Eric." It's very cute, but we figure Eric won't find it so funny when he's 12 and bringing friends home after school.
Adrianne sent us a big box of Noah's outgrown toys, including a play gym for babies who still spend a lot of time on their backs: the baby lies under a crossbar from which toys hang, and bats at them and what not. I gave it to Eric for the first time this morning. He had been lying in his playpen making noises and wiggling, and when I put the play gym over him he got very still and quiet and studied it intently. And then after about two minutes, he suddenly grinned really big and started batting at the hanging toys. It was just like the first time he got in the bath with me. "This is new and different," he seemed to be thinking. "Hmmm. I will study it to see whether it is good."
David and I had a big go-round about household clutter, a perennial issue for us. I am the person who, as a teen, imagined her ideal house as having almost nothing in it. For instance, I always dreamed of a bedroom with a huge walk-in closet that would hold everything, so that the bedroom itself would have nothing in it but a bed and a night table (on the night table: alarm clock, reading lamp, book). I still think that would be a great bedroom. David, on the other hand, is untroubled by having a lot of stuff around. So I was having a big meltdown about how cluttered our house is, and David said, "Clutter? What clutter? I don't see any clutter. You are always saying that but you never get specific about what exactly you don't like. Why don't you get specific?"
So I am. I am drawing up a Master Plan for re-organizing the house. I am trying to look at each room with new eyes. One thing I see is that much of our stuff is sort of random and doesn't really fit our needs. For instance, we have a coffee table and end table that belonged to David's parents. They're getting a little worn, but that doesn't bother us. What I see, though, is that we use the coffee table for only two things: piling stuff on it, and putting our feet on it. David and I are agreed that we would make better use of space if instead of those two tables we had two end tables that were taller and had shelves. There are some we like in the Levenger catalog. So that is part of the Master Plan, but will have to wait until there is money for such things.
Other aspects of the Master Plan can be implemented more immediately. I am ready to weed books again. We also have a plan to switch the living room and dining room, so that what is now the dining room would become a bird-free living room in which we could entertain people (we're even thinking about putting french doors up in the entrance to the living room, as there were originally when the house was built. The doors are still in the basement). Of course, even the parts of this plan that don't require money require time and energy, which are in short supply.
David and Scott are simply in ecstasy* because we are getting cable internet installed on Friday. They have been waiting impatiently for the service to reach Lansing. They tell me that we will be able to all be on-line at the same time, that it will be ten times faster than my current connection, and that I will be able to be on the phone and on-line at the same time. Woo-hoo.
*"Simply in ecstasy": This is a phrase I picked up in a college Russian class that has stuck with me, from a silly poem we learned to help us remember prepositions: "By the sea at Blinsk, he cries from grief, but in the London morgue he is simply in ecstasy." In Russian, it rhymes, as does, "Between the chair and the table, Mosha cuts his nose with a knife" (the latter is also pleasantly alliterative). I can forgot all the other Russian I ever knew, but I will go to my grave knowing how to say those two useful things.
David is feeding the baby, and then I think we are going to bed. Perhaps I can read a little bit of my book: The Count of Monte Cristo. Very exciting. Only a few chapters in and our hero has already been wrongfully imprisoned as a Bonapartist on the eve of his wedding, and has been thrown off a cliff into the ocean wrapped in a sack and with a cannonball tied to his feet. Who knows what thrills the remaining 400 pages hold.
Posted by Su Penn at December 1, 2003 04:33 PM | TrackBack