What a Life!

Mmmm, Food…

Yesterday was a day filled with great accomplishments. Guess what I did? I fixed supper.

Okay, I know. That probably doesn’t sound like a great accomplishment to you. But wait! Guess how I did it?

I made supper at three o’clock in the afternoon. Yes, Steve was still at work. No, he didn’t come home early. But I made supper. And that’s what counts.

When you’re a mom with a young baby, evening is not a prime time to be spending time in the kitchen. Remember the Age of Opinion (as it pertains to Joey)? That’s what fixing supper is like so we usually eat simple things like gravy over old bread turned into toast or chef’s salad or leftover soup that takes ten minutes to thaw. That’s right – if I can’t do it in ten minutes, it doesn’t get done.

And Steve says he’s tired of soup. Sorry, but in my humble opinion, that is the only redeeming factor that winter can claim. I’m making more soup today, in case you’re wondering. Pea Soup. Yum.

But back to yesterday. I actually fixed supper. As in, a real meal. I made mashed potatoes from scratch. Baked Pineapple. And steak. We used to grill steak once a week. I don’t remember the last time we had steak. Steak used to be my “easy meal.” Ha-ha! How things change!

This steak happened to be part of our annual Christmas gift from Steve’s dad. Unfortunately, Steve’s dad isn’t very good at picking out good cows to butcher. I cooked the steak medium so it was still quite pink in the middle, and it was tough as leather. Steve says he hated steak until he was in college and ate some at a restaurant. His mother used to always cook them well done. If they are tough when they’re cooked medium, I can’t imagine what well done would be like. Anyway…

Ahh, Sleep…

Another grand accomplishment for yesterday was reviewing Elizabeth Pantly’s No Cry Sleep Solution in an effort to get Joey to go to sleep at night without the prerequisite two hours of crying. He’ll go down at 6:30 and sleep for about 45 minutes and then he cries and cries until after 9:00 when he finally goes back to sleep again. I’m telling you, it’s not fun. Steve tells me he can hardly study with a baby crying like that…as though I enjoy listening to him cry or something.

According to Elizabeth Pantly, a baby Joey’s age should be going to sleep for the night around 6:30. If Joey did that, I would be thrilled. I don’t care if that meant I had to get up with him three times during the night. It would mean I could leave and do Mary Kay or meet up with my knitting buddies and Joey would just sleep through it. Wow! I wouldn’t berate myself so badly for not being a member of the Five O’Clock Club if I had my evenings to myself again. As it is, with Joey crying all evening, I can’t ask Steve to watch him because he needs to study, and how much am I going to have to pay someone to watch a screaming baby?

Elizabeth Pantly says to try a new routine and do it for ten days and then take a step back and review how things are going. There is a short list of suggestions I’m trying to implement, the main one being to put him down for the evening at 6:30. Last night, he went down right at 6:30. Fell sound asleep. Then at 7:15, he woke up crying. But instead of treating this like an “awake” time, I stayed in the dark room and tried to get him settled back down. I’d get him settled down and back asleep, and then he’d wake up. Round and around we went until finally I had tried everything. I’d fed him, put him in the swing, his diaper was dry, he was in comfortable clothes, he had a comfortable bed…

I must confess, at this point, I had about had it. There were tears running down my cheeks too. So I put him down, put his blanket over him, and just stood there next to him. His crying got stronger and stronger until it was as bad as I can imagine it could possibly get. He did that for about a minute, and then all of a sudden he shut up, fell asleep, and didn’t wake up anymore. As in, I spent the rest of the evening on the couch knitting and watched CSI: Miami with Steve without having to get up and try to soothe a crying baby.

…and Laughter

And finally, a third accomplishment for my beaming resume. This one might make you laugh.

Sunday I looked out the window and noticed that Steve’s back tire on his truck was flat. I told him we could call a tow truck and State Farm would reimburse us 100% because we have the Roadside Assistance rider on our policy. But no, he had to go out and spend an hour and a half in freezing temperatures changing it himself, which gave him lots of things to grump about for the remainder of the day.

Anyway, he took the tire in Monday morning on his way to work and it had a tear along the wall so it needed to be replaced. He wanted me to call around and price tires for him, of course. So early in the afternoon, while Joey was taking one of his 45 minute naps (part of the sleeping problem), I made a few calls.

Now earlier in the day, Ben had been taking care of Mr. Bunny just like I take care of Joey. I came upstairs and he had all of Joey’s blankets out of the crib and had made a bed with them for Mr. Bunny on the floor. It was cute, but I wasn’t very happy with Joey’s blankets being strewn on the floor. I still have on of the doll blankets I had as a kid – a polyester quilt my Grandma Hagele made which was played with a lot but shows absolutely no signs of wear (polyester – the fabric of steel). I got it out for Ben and told him it was a special blanket he could use just for Mr. Bunny or Mr. Moose or whoever was cold and needed it. I’m telling you, my giving him that blanket was the highlight of his day. Here he is:

So I was holding Joey and trying to keep him happy while I called mechanics and priced tires for Steve’s truck. Ben got Mr. Bunny and his blanket, held him just like I was holding Joey, and put his hand up to his other ear as though he was on the phone pricing tires as well. He would just repeat what he thought were key phrases of what I was saying. I don’t remember any of the exact phrases he used, nor did I get a picture of this. I’m just saying it was all I could do not to set the phone down during a serious conversation with some mechanic about tires and laugh hysterically at what Ben was doing. I almost lost it a couple of times, but somehow I managed to maintain my composure enough to get prices so Steve could decide which ones he wanted on his truck.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my very productive day, one that I should definitely include on my resume as a stay-at-home-mom. I know, you’re rolling your eyes and thinking you probably could have done all of that and more in a mere hour. Just know that I’m rolling my eyes too and thinking, yeah, you just don’t have a clue.