Fly Change

/Dear J-

It’s technically the last day I have off, since I’m officially working from home* come Monday but it feels like the first day again; in the past eight days, I’ve been a newly re-minted parent (Thursday), single dad (Friday night), family warrior (Saturday haul-home), bsrbecue operator (Sunday), shopper (Monday and Tuesday), host (Wednesday), chauffeur (Thursday) and finally just exhausted all the time. It’s been great, in other words. I’ve snapped a lot more than usual in the past week and have surprised myself with what I am incapable of (rising with short sleep intervals has apparently gone right out along with naps and luxurious sleeping in: it is no coincidence that everything I think about has to do with sleep lately).

Yesterday I figured out a way to fit all six souls into the car: the third row in our Mazda 5 isn’t equipped with LATCH/ISOFIX anchors, but it still has a seatbelt, and the particular car seat we have for Calcifer (Grace SafeSeat) has a built-in belt anchor. Thus when figgy’s in the second row, Calcifer sits directly behind, and there’s just enough room to tuck a stroller in the dramatically smaller cargo area, and fit four adults in the remaining four open seats. It’s hardly ideal, but we’re all friendly and as a result we’ve gotten to and from Irvine without anyone risking permanent deformation. Key is to stay flexible and work around, around, around when you have to and when you can.

I’m almost ready to declare the transition period over, as figgy has taken to nigh-mutiny as Calcifer embeds himself into our lives. Today she’s demanded (and mostly gotten away with) murder as far as snacks and TV and game playing have gone; we don’t want to upset her apple cart any further, but we’re starting to tighten down as well, though. The way things were was comfortable for everyone. The way things are now, we’re settling into a new routine that doesn’t necessarily treat everyone the same, but as fairly as we can manage. This week has been a bit artificial in terms of the help we’ve gotten and extra work we’ve had to pull together, but it seems do-able and, given our experience with figgy, things will definitely get better and brighter (and more fun, ever more fun: figgy has a deadpan sense of humor) as we keep flying through the changes.

Mike

* Ironic thing is that even though we worried about and asked for and got the virtual private network encryption key (it dangles from the end of my keychain, in fact, and generates a numeric combination in shifting patterns) the laptop isn’t set up to use that particular piece of software, and so I’ll be heading in to work on Monday specifically to get the laptop working like it should have been.

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Double Happiness

Dear J-

If you’re in to that sort of thing (and believe me, figgy definitely is), LEGO.com has a bunch of flash-based web games that are pretty fun distractors and serve as decent rewards (read that as bribes) for a three year old.  She must think everything has a touchscreen, though, as there’s numerous fingerprints to be wiped off after each session of strenuous pointing at various items for dad to push.  But it almost serves the need for a TV replacement at times, albeit one that requires more supervision and interaction.

Still, to watch her run around you’d wonder how she doesn’t lose weight (and even now theVet’s parents have commented on how she’s growing skinny, which is a function of getting ever taller).  All day.  Nonstop.  And the growing up is no mean feat, mind you:  I get to watch it up close and document it probably every weekend for the past 180-some-odd weekends, so the changes seem minute to me but there’s significant growth between here and three, the point slammed home by the tiny things for Calcifer compared to the shockingly massive ones for figgy.

At one point today I asked theVet if she could handle the kids while I ran off to do something — grab a shopping cart or something similarly quotidian.  Kids is a magical turn of phrase.  They say that becoming a parent changes everything, and I’ve learned that to be true in so many ways; no one ever told me that being twice blessed is just as much fun again.

Mike