Approximately every twenty to thirty minutes since putting the baby to bed at seven o'clock this evening, she has woken from her extremely restless sleep wailing inconsolably. After four hours of this I think I've safely made a diagnosis of either one of two things. A) She's got a cold, or B) she's teething. Whew. That was a toughie. Either way it's been a real joy to feel completely helpless as to what she needs/wants. Brings me back to when she was only a few months old and made it her quest to confuse me with her crying jags each and every evening. I'm gearing up for a long night and tempted to just make a pot of coffee right now. Might be easier for everyone involved, I figure.
She started to get real pleasant right around the time I began throwing together one of my suppers of the stand-by, old-faithful sort (translation: has been made so many times since Ryan started the afternoon shift, I should have bought stock in the staples). The house was sailing (and I don't say this lightly, trust me), and she was wailing (I can't help it. Sorry. It's late and I'm simply amused.) Anyways at some point between charcoling the grilled cheese sandwiches and boiling the tomato soup over all over the top of the stove (oh, yes, I did!), I realized this unbelievably crazy day was nowhere near close to over: it was just beginning .
I looked around the kitchen in it's upturned state feeling completely overwhelmed. Tiny pieces of paper littered the floor where the kids had been chopping "mail" to deliver to every single imaginable spot in the house that might possibly resemble some minute characteristic of a "mailbox". It appeared as if the cupboards had thrown up all over the counters, for they resembled the aftermath of a multi-course meal preparation, not a three-ingredient-slap-together-insta-supper. The dishes had piled impossibly high after running the dishwasher just prior to lunch. And in my mind all I could do was continue repeating they're healthy, they're happy, they're healthy, they're happy.
So, my plans of a quiet, project-loaded evening dissipated quickly, just moments after I got the three older kids to bed and heard Adalie's first wails. And you know what? Big deal. The wind is howling, the baby is (let me type this quietly) finally sleeping again snuggled up next to me on the couch, and what in this crazy world could possibly matter more than to be right here in this moment instead of worrying about the things I didn't get accomplished today?
I cannot think of a single thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment