Mr. Mom Part II

I had a rough flight back last night from Minneapolis getting in after midnight so I haven't had a chance to fill in the cliff hanger. I was going to share the story with my colleagues at dinner one night and then realized we were eating dinner and it may not be appropriate. What you do for your kids.

I am sure all single parents can relate to what you have to go through when there is no one else around to provide a helping hand. Junior was up early and I had been holding him since 4am trying to get him back to sleep and he was pretty whiny. It was near 6 am at this point and I needed to go downstairs and get him a bottle out of the fridge and warm it up for his morning feeding. Well, nature called and I had no where to put him so I brought him along for the ride. Everything was working out fine until he became a little too interested in the event leaned over right after the toilet was flushed and spit out his pacifier into the now swirling toilet. Choice words were muttered, a short thought process of solutions was run down; A. pacifier roams harmlessly through Tampa's sewer never to be seen again, B. pacifier jams downstairs toilet causing overflow, which means a HUGE headache for single weekend dad, C. pacifier rolls out Tampa's sewer system into the gulf of Mexico gets lodged in a Dolphin's air hole killing said dolphin and Josh ends up on front page of St. Pete Times for killing dolphin, D. the least desirable choice of acting like a man closing eyes, going to your special place, throwing arm into toilet and retrieving pacifier. Unfortunately, choice D was deemed the most responsible. What's with having a kid and being responsible all the time? I'm turning into a horrible person. So, at 6 am I went fishing for a pacifier in our hopefully, spotlessly clean toilet. I did wash my hands vigorously after the event. The Qster didn't even seem to notice the sacrifice father of the year just went through.

Later that day he did even out the scenario for parent number two, his mother. I was changing him in our bedroom, on the bed, and decided since he likes to be naked so bad I would leave him there for a short moment in all his glory while I washed my hands. Do you see how often you wash your hands with a mini-me running around? In the short time it took me to wash my hands he rolled over and seemed to be very much enjoying himself. Well, it turns out that wasn't the look of joy, it was the look of relieving oneself on our bed. He peed through the covers, the mattress cover and began soaking the bed right where Carrie lays her sweet head. Another moment of panic, thought process of what do I do? Can you turn that thing off please? I need a roll of paper towels attached to my belt at all times to be prepared. I am now stripping the bed, holding a naked child, running through the house collecting something to soak up the pee (where is that Sham-wow! when you need it)? In the end his bodily fluids don't stink. After all, he's breast fed. The real question is whether or not we should tell the wife or just quickly wash the sheets and welcome her home? In Quentin's eight months of wisdom he decided to go the honest Abe route and duly confessed upon seeing his mother for the first time in 72 hours. No one in this family has ever been a very good liar anyway. It is fairly entertaining to discuss, especially around bed time.

Quentin is beginning to make serious progress toward crawling and here is a picture Carrie took while I was away this week. He turned 8 months old yesterday. Look at our little monkey go!

I am Mr. Mom

This weekend I had the privilege of being the sole parent in the household for an entire 72 hour period leaving Quentin at the mercy of his father's parenting. Before people start thinking about how much fun all the NFL game watching, beer drinking and possibly occasional cigar smoking session was, let me just lay a few ground rules. First, don't bother buying the beer. It will only make you jealous seeing it sit there because you will not have time to drink so much as one delicious drop. 8 month old children, apparently, require your attention 24/7 leaving no time to indulge in such frivolous personal enjoyments. Next, you can forget about the cigar smoking. He couldn't hold on to it and was constantly dropping it so that was out. Finally, he doesn't care about TV so it didn't matter if we were watching the 1996 season of "America's Team" where the Packers manhandled their opponents in route to their third Championship. He simply wasn't interested. So the man weekend I had planned was out. The Mr. Mom weekend I hadn't planned on was in.

It all started on Friday when Q and I got the pleasure to fly home together from Iowa. As usual Quentin was good on both flights. The first plane was so small a 1 by 2 as in a total of 1 seat, aisle, 2 seats we could barely fit in our seats. We were in the two with the lottery winner, a business man, who was so excited to see us bounding down the aisle only to stop at his row. Quentin is so big now, or rather the seats (planes) are so small now that there isn't room for two even if he is a baby. His feet either touch the person next to you if you lay him horizontal across your lap or are touching, actually, kicking the seat in front of him. Hmm, we get another year and half before we have to buy him a seat. You don't want to travel near us. The second flight he slept before we left the gate and was still sleeping when we landed.

The hardest part of traveling with him is carrying all the gear. My back will never be the same. I was carrying him (20+ pounds), my briefcase with laptop, the stroller and his diaper bag full of food/bottles. I had many people pass their pity on to me, and for the most part were pretty helpful. When I got off the first plane I got the stroller, put him in it and drove about 30 yards to discover there is two flights of stairs. How is that even allowed? Fortunately some lady threw me a solid and carried the stroller for me. Outside of TSA hassling me and making me open every bottle (3) and sealed baby food jar (2), incidentally considered a liquid, which delayed us about 30 minutes it was pretty uneventful. After TSA finished their "terrorist" check in Cedar Rapids, where Bin Laden is reportedly hiding, they asked incredulously, "Are you traveling alone?" Actually no, I'm with the screaming child you detained for 30 minutes. He was clean and we only had to put him on the conveyor belt for X-rays. I'm sure it was a great relief to the other passengers on our plane.

We got to the airport in Tampa and our bags and car seat (intact!) were already waiting for us. When we got home and got the mail we had a letter from Delta with their sincerest apologies and to tell us they were cutting us a check to pay for the car seat. We appreciate it and think they did the right thing. We were still very surprised they did. It was worth writing the letter. I am a big fan of the letter and think if people would do it more often there would be more satisfied customers. They also kicked me 10,000 miles because "they know I may not be able to fly as much this year due to the economy." And Miller Lite shot me a check for $15. Corporate America is worried about losing you as a customer for the first time in a long time. Take advantage.

I have more, but also have a 6 am flight, so I'll save the rest for later this week like how junior dropped his pacifier at dawn in a toilet, soiled and already flushed leaving dad with a half second decision to either go swimming or....stay tuned.

I am not hungry

Well, junior is still waking up 5-8 times a night but we did manage to get the crying to subside and that makes a world of difference. We still can't figure out why he's getting up every 60-90 minutes but we've ruled out hunger. First of all this kid has a gut that rivals champions of beer belly contests so he's certainly not starving. And we are the world's greatest parents but after the accusatory nature of nurse know-it-all we feel better now that we've been vindicated. Isn't it just like the medical professional to blame you when they can't figure out what's wrong? I think the MD profession is glorified voodoo. I mean in the last 2,000 years have we really made much progress? Is there a cure for the common cold? How about AIDS? Cancer? It looks like back to the drawing board for us and the doctor. He is now waking up and just hanging out instead of screaming at the top of his lungs for hours on end, and that makes the whole thing tolerable.

This morning he got up at 5 and we tried to pretend it wasn't happening as a family but only the dog was succeeding and actually sleeping so I got up and got to the office early and knocked out some busy work before the day started. It was pouring out so the dog couldn't get his morning walk in so we made a first class breakfast and ate as a family turning our morning lemons into lemonade. Now when 2pm rolls around and the umteenth pot of coffee is on that will be a different story. But until then we are happy.

Just returned from picking Q up from daycare and got scolded because he bit two kids! Oh no! My kid is a bully! I guess that's better then being the one that gets picked on but biting already?!? I hope he doesn't get expelled. I won't even sit here and tell you that other kid deserved it but I'm sure he did something to deserve my mild mannered son unleashing the angry beast within. Hopefully he's just trying out his new chompers and it doesn't mean anything. Speaking of biting, here is a pic of Quentin climbing off the chair on to the dog and ahem, biting him.