Skip to main content

The never-ending onslaught of the 'foreign substances'

My stay-at-home daddy adventure feels like it has reached a feverish pace.
Willow is in her toddler prime, which means she has become a world-class mess-maker. I haven't spent much time around other toddlers, so I don't know if they're all world-class mess-makers, but I'm guessing they are. I'm guessing it's a requirement for being a toddler.
On any typical day, I feel like I'm that short cleaning robot in "Wall-E," the one who uses its scrubber attachment to chase down and clean up "foreign substances." Throughout the movie, that guy is rolling around cleaning mess after mess after mess.
I spring into action much the same way. I roll over to the mess and start scrubbing it up. Meanwhile, our toddler angel is off making other messes. A whole bunch more goes into my job, but, really, I can say with all honesty that being a scrubber robot chasing around mess-making Willow dominates my days.
I am not complaining. I have the best job in the world. I know that. All I'm saying is I'm quite busy. Also, again with all honesty, I can say I'm on my feet and running around about a quad-million-jillion times more than I was in my old editing job (though, even stationed comfortably at my desk, it felt like I was too busy to breathe sometimes; I'm breathing much better at my new job).
I digress.
Today at lunch, Willow and I sat at our dining room table. Meals always start off peaceful and happy. But after a few minutes, I started having this imaginary dialogue with Willow in my head:
Willow: "Oh, servant! Servant! Might I have your attention?"
Me: "Zz ... huh?"
Willow: "Servant, my apologies, but I must explain something to you."
Me: "Okay?"
Willow: "I am so enjoying these pear wedges, dear servant, but I must warn you, I do so enjoy throwing them to the floor as well."
Me: "The floor ... no, please?"
Willow: "I don't know, servant. I have this overwhelming urge to just pitch them, right here, right now, over the side and to the floor. Oh, I'm getting so giddy thinking about it!"
Me: "Oh, please, no! I am so, so tired."
Willow: "That settles it! My enjoyment will be twice as good! Here they go!"
Me: "Nooooooooooooo ..."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Daddy gets the afternoon all to himself

Few times in the course of stay-at-home daddyhood does an event like this happen. This, indeed, is historic. I get to take my tail out of this house and go do whatever I want (within legal, moral and ethical bounds, of course). By myself. Alone. Indeed, I say ... indeed. Cherish's mother and grandmother are coming to take care of Willow for the afternoon, giving me a much-earned afternoon to myself. And this is what I'm going to do: I'm going to find the manliest, biggest-waste-of-time, money-wasting, violent movie I can, and I'm going to lay down my wife's hard-earned dime, and I'm going to watch that movie. My pick: "Immortals." I read in the local paper this morning that "Immortals" was rated at only 1 1/2 stars. It's supposed to be a horrible movie. Good. I'm going to bask in the crappy escape from baby poo. I'm going to inhale the smell of stale popcorn and that what-the-heck-is-that?-pee? odor. And I'm going to ...

Today I work

We're traveling to Henderson, Tenn., for a long Thanksgiving weekend. That means: Good eating. Football. Hugs. Excitement for Willow. Giving thanks. Games. Family. And lastly, packing and hauling my little family down there. Yes, that last task is an enormous one (it's a big enough burden with just a husband and wife, but when you add a baby ... oh, my!). We leave tonight. So I know what lies ahead for me today. I'm at the keyboard now, steeling myself for the long day ahead. I have work to do. I've downloaded an app to my iPhone to help me pack for the new addition (Willow). The app is quite helpful, but it's overwhelming looking at the list and its 1,036,154 things to do. Do I even have enough time today to go through this list? And the app doesn't even begin to account for the things Mommy wants. If I were to add those requests to the list, we'd be up to ... just a sec ... calculating ... calculating ... here we go ... 3,176,203 things to...

With baby comes packing (and a lot of it)

Willow, Che and I are traveling to see the grandparents, aunts, cousins and Mos (or is it Moes or is it Mo's or is it Moses?) in Henderson, Tenn., this weekend. And that brings up one of the big differences between being a couple without kids and being a couple with kids: packing for travel (they even have an app for that, God bless us packing-weary parents). Back in my pre-child days, packing hardly mattered, probably taking up 1 zillionth of a tenth of a percent of my brain capacity to do (six days equals six days of socks and underwear plus some T-shirts, some shorts, a pair or two of pants, put on some shoes, throw in some toothpaste, and I was off). That's hardly the case anymore. Take, for example, if you have a spit-up-prone baby. Do you take two burp clothes, four, eight or, maybe, 16? Better take 24. And how many diapers do you take? Or wipes? Do I need to take baby medicine? Is it going to be cold or warm or cold and warm or warm and hot then ... AACK!!! You get t...