David is up in Boone this weekend so it's just Olive and myself and the dog. If you came to the house tonight and knocked on the door I wouldn't let you in, because I wouldn't want you to see the place in its current state of disarray. It's not that I haven't had the time to clean up- the baby went down early tonight after her bath- it's that I decided to watch a show about modern-day polygamists instead. Just one episode, on my computer while I edited some photos. As background noise.
Well, you know how it is with polygamy shows. You get sucked in big time. Aside from all the births and the big hair and the scenes of one woman making about a hundred sandwiches at once, there's that fabulous Utah landscape! Makes for a dramatic backdrop no matter what the season. Watchable stuff!
Olive was a mess when we came home this evening. She'd been slithering around in the grass and dirt all evening, plus her friend Arthur used her as a napkin as he ate garlicky green beans. She's never been all that dirty before so it was ultra satisfying tonight to give her a bath and actually wash her clean. Up until this point baths have felt primarily ceremonial. Tonight it completely transformed her. When I lifted her out of the water she looked like a cross between a peach and a rose.
I patted her dry and zipped her into a pair of easter colored pajamas, stuffed her gently into her starfish suit which is already getting too small, and laid in her my bed with her lobster pacifier and her Peter Rabbit. She was out before I made it to the end of The Mixed Up Chameleon.
We lounged the first half of the day. She played in her room while I straightened up, and I read my book in bed next to her during her naps, which is an outrageously decadent thing to do when one considers the mess in the kitchen.
Once this morning she was sitting up all on her own, but she's still very wobbly and she fell straight backwards and hit her head on the wood floor. That made her burst into tears, and as I gathered her up in my arms and held her against my shoulder, there was a brief strange moment where I felt excited that she was crying, because it meant I had the opportunity to comfort her. This kid never cries, I'm telling you, so I rarely get the chance to soothe or comfort her. Even today, her friend Teddy kicked her in the face (it was a big day!) (he didn't mean to) and she barely fussed, and she stopped the minute that Teddy's mom, Maggy, picked her up.
You may be picking up on this already: Olive had an extremely social day. We met some friends at Sweeten Creek Brewery in the afternoon and stayed through dinner. Everyone had a baby or a dog or both. I had both, It was a handful. I drank a New England Pale Ale, at a Ruben Sandwich and a bag of chips, and then found myself in a state of almost delirious dehydration. Olive roughhoused with Teddy and Arthur. She's not particularly big or heavy, but she's a strong, solid little thing. I'm so proud of her.
I really like my friends. I never had the opportunity to write about them in the space allotted by my stupid, detestable one-line-a-day journal. They're laid back and they're funny. I hope we all get to go camping later this summer when I'm home from New England, or take a canoe trip together.
One final thing tonight. A Jill asked in the comments on my last post whether or not I ever get bored throughout the day, given the tedium and the repetition of being home alone with a baby, and since she asked me to answer I'm going to try. Jill, I completely understand where you're coming from with that question and the answer is: not yet.
See right now, she completely entertains herself. She's still in the totally-fascinated-by-examining-a-sock phase. The only thing I have to do really is be around (and be available to feed her every five minutes) and she's happy. Honestly, sometimes I try and play with her, as opposed to just beside her, and she'll look rather annoyed. She is entirely undemanding. I do not expect that to last. If we're in the nursery, which is childproofed, I get to relax and work on some of my own projects. Not writing though, that takes way too much thought.
I still think a lot of people in my position would get bored, however. But remember, I had very strange circumstances the last couple of years. I was too sick to do much of anything, and I rattled around the house alone more hours than I wish to recount. That was a wretched type of boredom- I had to be extremely creative to fill my time. Compared to those days, my current list of simple (and seemingly unending) tasks feels very pleasing and contenting, albeit repetitive as shit.
You know what I do find mind-numbing? Doing up all the snaps on her onesies after each and every diaper change- and with cloth diapers there are about one million every hour. Some of her outfits have like fifteen snaps! That's fifteen million snaps every hour!
I need to hurry up and hit publish before midnight, otherwise today's post will become tomorrow's post and that will have meant I already missed a day. Good night! Goodbye!
(One final note, Jill- I think it's totally fine if you're lying there reading a magazine instead of making train noises as you mentioned. And I think it's fine for me to be editing photos or doing the laundry or whatever- it's usually one of those two things- while Olive plays on the floor next to me. My own parents tasked themselves with these things: providing for me, creating a warm and stable environment, reading to me at bedtime, taking me on lots of fun outings, feeding me, and giving me ample opportunity to run around, see friends and be outside. But I don't remember them actually playing with me that often. Obviously they interacted with me and included me in grown up tasks as I got older, like baking or cleaning. But I never thought of them as my playmates).