Under Pressure

Yesterday I said goodbye to Lazlo at 7:30 a.m. and hello again 10:15 p.m. Yuck. It was a long day.

For a couple of relatively lazy people who've held all manner of parttime and fulltime "jobs" during out courtship and marriage, we've still always had it pretty easy. When Lazlo worked at UT he could get there late and leave for a two hour picnic in the middle of the day. They were all too busy figuring out how to fire the guy who had actually STOPPED coming to work to worry about Lazlo leaving early. When I worked at the coffee shop it was only 3 days a week, and Lazlo got off from teaching around 4 in the afternoon. I've also been a nanny and an assistant librarian, neither of which were very time intensive. Now I'm a mom, which is pretty freaking time intensive, and I was awake for a total of 10 minutes of quality time with Lazlo. (that's 7:25-7:30 and 10:15-10:20)

It's payback for the smug satisfaction I've felt with our relationship. "We're so connected! Look at all these poor shmucks having dinner together- they don't have anything to say to each other! Not us! We could talk for HOURS!" and we do. Like disgruntled coworkers with bad cell phone connections: "Can you hear me now? Okay I'm walking outside- I have 3 bars...Okay, I'll pick you up and we'll go the store and you can drive around the parking lot to keep the baby asleep while I buy sixteen twelve packs of diet coke..." We exchange logistical household-running details, when the diaper service is coming, how much milk I've pumped, who paid what bill. yuck.

It's not actually this bad- Lazlo only has class 2 nights a week. And if I make more of an effort I can do something besides hold the baby all day. It just felt like an abrupt return from vacation, where my mom and mother-in-law would resort to anything to hold the baby, thereby giving me two free hands for up to three hours at a time. And Lazlo went to work slightly late today, so we got to laze around in bed with coffee and our newly rolly baby girl. That was especially nice.

I don't know if you've heard- but in addition to being ridiculously fat and adorable, Wren has added some new accomplishments to her list. She giggles, grabs her toes, smiles spontaneaosly, flaps her arms around her face like little birds, grabs toys, replaces her pacifier when it falls out of her mouth (woo-hoo!) and...wait for it...rolls over! Unfortunately for poor Wrennel, she can only roll one way, back to stomach, and she really REALLY doesn't like being on her stomach. This doesn't stop her from constantly trying as hard as she can to get on her stomach. It makes me so curious to know what's going on in her head. Put her on her back and BAM- she rolls over. Then she grunts for a few sad, hopeless seconds, then she cries. I walk over and flip her onto her back. She looks excited and surprised, and before I turn around she's rolled over again. It's sort of on the frustration level of Chinese water torture, for both of us, I imagine.

The whole thing has also made me aware of all the baby-proofing we're going to be needing really soon. I'm not even talking about latching the bleach cabinet. More along the lines of, say, not setting the baby down where she's going to roll into the surge protector. One step ahead- that's us.

I need to post about our fabulous trip to Texas, but not today. Today I have to take Wren to get four more projectile vomit and fever inducing vaccinations at the children's clinic. My afternoon will be spent cleaning up vomit and fighting with the insurance company.