Note: This post was from a previous blog and was originally posted on April 29, 2010.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my husband was out of town. Husband is actually a really amazing partner and father, despite what I may say or complain about occasionally. He rushed home from the airport to make sure he saw O before O went to bed. O and I were sitting on our front porch and when Husband drove up and got out of the car, O started bouncing and screeching excitedly. SO CUTE. Nevermind that he doesn’t really do that when I get home. The smile on Husband’s face was priceless. We must have looked like one of those families in a laundry commercial. Mom and baby sitting on steps in front of white house with black shutters, jasmine blooming, dogs barking. Husband pulls up in sleek European car and gets out with briefcase to greet the happy family. Baby bounces excitedly, and Husband swoops baby up, twirling him around as baby giggles/gurgles joyfully. Husband kisses wife and all go inside pretty white house.
Husband missed baby, so barely blinked when I told him I was too tired to do bedtime tonight and that I couldn’t even LOOK at the rocking chair. He did say “the WHOLE bedtime routine?” I said yep and went into the other room and LAY ON MY BED AND READ A BOOK. I have never done that. Even when Husband offers to take care of baby, I feel this guilt and need to help. Not this time. Husband put baby to bed. I took care of dinner (ordered a pizza). We watched DVR’d episodes of Community and 30 Rock and I went to bed at 9:30 pm. Ahhh, bliss.
It gets better! O sleeps all night! (Of course he does since Husband offered to get up with him at night). O wakes up a bit earlier than normal but is playing in his crib babbling to himself and turning off and on his aquariaum thing. DH bounds out of bed saying “Let me get him up.” I selflessly “let” him get the baby and close my eyes for a few extra minutes of quiet time. Big sigh, I love my husband and my happy morning baby. We SHOULD be in a laundry commercial.
“MY NAME YELLED LOUDLY”! “COME HERE, I NEED YOUR HELP!”. Drag myself upstairs. O is gurgling merrily on the changing table, a pair of socks in his mouth. (Hey, it used to be the medicine bottle until I realized that letting O “play” with medicine might lead to accidents and/or serious drug addiction as a teenager so who cares if he puts his dirty socks in his mouth?) Husband is holding O’s legs up. O has pooped so much and so hard it is CAKED onto him, all the way up his back to his neck and under his arms. It’s a two-man job. I’ll spare you the details, but it basically involves crazy yoga moves to get O out of the now-green jammies, multiple wipe-downs with an entire tub of wipes, and a bath because the SMELL doesn’t go away even when we manage to peel all of the poop off of him. All before 7 am.
As Husband and I are watching O happily kick and play in his whale tub, big blue eyes grinning contentedly at us, I think we REALLY should be in a laundry commerical. This is what it should look like. Not the easy homecoming, but the gross morning poops, the sleep interruption and the sweet aftermath. THIS is what laundry really looks like with a baby. Though I guess I should mention that we didn’t use some magic laundry detergent to clean the poop. We threw the nasty jammies away.
And Scene.
My Words Go Here 