Since my job requires me to work on Saturdays, Sundays is the only day of the week that I know for sure I will be at home. Because of this Sundays have become an unofficial daddy-daughters day.
I take the two girls shopping, play with them or whatever and leave the boy with my wife at home.
This week, it was a trip to the movie theater to watch The Water Horse, followed by a trip to Ultra Foods for some grocery shopping.
As you can imagine, chaos did ensue.
Three nights ago, my wife and I spent more than an hour rearranging Zion’s bedroom inside our new apartment.
Her pink and purple, butterfly-themed hamper had to move inside her closet. Toys that she played with when she was several months old could no longer sit against a wall next to her crib any more.
Zion’s room required serious organization. On Tuesday, Christmas Day, the little one racked up on new threads and all kinds of toys.
Colorful shirts and sweaters, jump suits and jeans.
Baby dolls, toy musical instruments, play cell phones and car keys.
Along with some clothes, Alicia and I bought her a kiddie bike that mimics a car by featuring a steering wheel and gear shift, but also converts into a rocker. (I know that sounds a bit unusual, but they make everything for kids these days.)
Zion got it all. And boy you should have seen her as she celebrated her very first Christmas.
My husband now knows what it’s like to give birth.
On Thursday, after five hours in the ER, he was diagnosed with a kidney stone.
I’ve heard that passing a kidney stone is very painful. One person (a woman, mind, you) actually told me the pain was worse than giving birth.
When Kenzie came back from her first day at preschool and couldn’t stop talking about this boy named Dominic, I thought it was cute.
I even mocked her.
For the past month, I’ve been up to my neck in work.
As usual, I produced my five, monthly health cover stories for The Journal. I wrote my bi-weekly Men’s Health column, and coordinated my other regular features like First Impressions and How We Met. And I designed the pages that announce recent weddings, engagements, birthdays and anniversaries.
But my being swamped with work recently went to the extreme.
During the last week of November, I took on a second job at Target in Bradley to make ends meet. There, I work as a cashier and a sales floor team member.
I’ve checked out dozens of customers who’ve flocked to the store to do their last-minute Christmas shopping. I also assist the store’s guests by locating their hard-to-find items on the sales floor and stock the shelves with recently shipped products. On some shifts, I’ve even pushed carts into the store at the end of the night — through the rain and snow.
Despite working until midnight — Target stays open later during the holidays — I’ve truly enjoyed my experience there and time with my new co-workers.
But being a father of an 11-month-old and expecting another child in February, it’s been tough. Especially on those nights, when I have to rush back home from Target, cop a few ZZZs and be back here at the Journal by 8 in the morning.
The babies are here!!!
The twins arrived at 3:17 p.m. Thursday. They weighed 17 pounds between them and are about 15 inches long. They didn’t have much hair, but appeared happy and healthy by the smiles on their faces.
Mommy’s got everything she needs to care for these little bundles of joy. She has a twin carriage, a twin bassinet, a twin stroller, twin high chair, twin swing, and a rocking play yard. The diaper bag is extra roomy, for carrying twice as much stuff, and it even came with two changing pads.
No, no, they’re not my babies — they’re Grace’s. It’s the Fisher Price Little Mommy Newborn Twin Set, and they arrived by DHL yesterday, exactly on their due date.
You see, Grace has been talking about getting a baby doll since September, and Santa almost didn’t come through.
On certain days, I fear that if DCFS showed up at my door and monitored my parenting for, oh, a half hour, all three of my kids would be immediately removed from my custody for good.
I’m not referring to my bouts of negligence, like the time I went upstairs to tend to David, and Kenzie and Kelsey seized the opportunity to get into Mom’s makeup drawer and smear fingernail polish over everything. (How in the world did she get it on the bottom of her feet?!?!?) Or the time I had the nerve to fall asleep during naptime and Kenzie woke up, used the bathroom, washed her hands and didn’t turn off the sink, flooding the upstairs bathroom and causing $1,000 worth of damage. No, I’m not talking about those things.
I’m referring to these little tidbits:
Earlier today, one of my colleagues in the newsroom stopped by my desk to tell me about a new doctor in our area whom she’d met recently.
Just before giving me the sticky note with his name and phone number for my future reference — see, I’m not just a complaining parent blogger; I’m the Journal’s health reporter — she noticed that a pink 8-oz baby bottle sitting on my desk in full view. Right next to my tape recorder and stacks of reporter’s notebooks.
“What’s up with the bottle, Tony?” I think she asked.
I instantly laughed because I completely forgot that the bottle was still sitting on my desk.
At lunchtime, I had decided to clean out my car. Yes, there was a ton of my crap everywhere — CDs, old newspapers, bills to be paid, sales receipts. But Zion had a lot of her stuff all over my back seat, too.
For one, there was her car seat. But I couldn’t really complain about that because it was my turn to pick up Zion from the baby-sitter. I hate being stuck because the car seat was left in my wife’s truck.
Strapping Zion in a seat belt as if she was an adult just wouldn’t work because she would’ve squirmed out and ended up on the floor on my first right turn or a sudden stop because of all that slippery snow. Not that I would do it anyway because I care about her safety. Not to mention, against the law.
Okay, back to Zion’s stuff-taking-over-my-car story.
Parents have so many things to keep track of — different schedules for church, work, school, family, scouts, music lessons and other extracurriculars outside school. Parents also have to keep track of different belongings for several people and planning for various future projects.
Hey, let’s stop on that one.
Christmas vacation is coming up. What are you and/or your kids planning to do?
“Decluttering the house again?” questions the boy. “That is the same thing we do every vacation,” he says, followed by a groan.
The end goal, of course, is gaining more breathing space. There is also the incentive for the daughter of having space to spread out that sewing project. The incentive for the boy would be having an area cleared to set up his race car track. The incentive for moms (present company included) is to keep the clutter from launching that overwhelming feeling the minute you walk in the door and have so much on your mind anyway.
Over the last week or so, my wife Alicia and I have seen Zion make significant progress with her walking.
And it’s brought so much joy already.
It seemed like an eternity passed as we waited for Zion to try getting around vertically. She had just found it way easier and quicker for her to crawl down a hallway to the next room.
Over time, though, we began to notice that she would stand herself up and hold onto furniture in the living room, kitchen and bedroom like most babies do as they practice walking.
Zion, now 11 months, still does that, but not as much anymore. She’s almost ready to do it alone.
It just cracks us up.
