A first for me and Zoe is officially on the books now: The Police and my parents went out of town for five days, and she and I fended for ourselves. I realize as I'm writing this that using the phrase "fended for ourselves" makes it sound like we were sleeping in the woods and scavenging for berries and burning fires to keep away the wolves. Which is not how it was at all, obviously. Well, for the most part.
What I'm trying to say is the daddy/husband was gone for the better part of a week, which means that I took care of a baby by myself for five evenings and nights, which I'd never had to do since she was born. To be honest, it wasn't nearly as difficult as I had worked myself up to thinking it would be. Zoe sleeps through the night like a little champ, so once I had her in bed around 9 p.m. I didn't hear from her again until the next morning.
There are, of course, some challenges to parenting by yourself, even for a short period -- especially when you're spoiled and used to having lots of good help around all the time, which I am and I do. Mainly those challenges all have to do with just not having enough hands. I would have been happy during that time to be part octopus, or something. Which sounds weird, and also presents a weird mental image, but whatever. It's just that there are only so many things which you can do while holding a wiggly baby. I know there are a lot of seasoned parents out there who have multiple kids and can do anything with a child hanging on to them, but I am not one of those people. And the idea of doing something like cooking with her on my hip scares the bejeezus out of me (Knives! Fire! Boiling water!), so she had to spend more time than she usually does in her swing or on her little play mat on the floor.
Which she did not appreciate.
Not one little bit.
In fact, if you were to ask her, she would probably tell you that the bulk of this week was a blur of neglect -- being expected to spend periods of time up to 10 OR 20 MINUTES on her own, without being held or spoken to directly. These kinds of conditions are not acceptable to The Princess. Raise your hand if you think that my baby might be spoiled.
Me too.
Anyway.
If you'd popped into my kitchen one evening this week, you may or may not have witnessed me chopping vegetables and singing to a baby in her car seat on the kitchen table, while she tried to decide whether or not to keep screaming. Things I've found that she likes so far include dancing cucumbers and the song "Desperado." I wouldn't have pegged her for a classic rock kind of girl, but honestly who doesn't love The Eagles?
Another thing I'd never thought of was how easy and nice it is to call for assistance when you suddenly find yourself on the receiving end of a spit up explosion. You can hand the baby off to get wiped down and go clean yourself up. When you're alone, not so much. What you have is a sticky and slippery baby (if the spit up explosion happens to be particularly huge) and wet clothes, and possibly wet shoes and furniture. And you just kind of sit there for a minute in shock, holding the baby out a little while you try to figure out what to wipe down first, and whether or not you should put the baby down to clean things up and then get the spit up that they're wearing on MORE furniture. After a few seconds of paralysis, I usually decided to just wear the spit up myself and get her changed and the furniture cleaned. Once I even finished giving her a bottle with a large amount of spit up trickling down my back and pooling on the couch behind me, in a disgusting milky puddle. Because she WANTED that bottle and putting her down long enough to clean things up was not an option.
But you know what? At the end of the week, when she was fussy and was handed off to me, she snuggled down and made the sign for "mommy," which is the first one she's officially mastered. And my heart completely melted. And when I sing to her at night, she breaks out her very biggest smile, that she only uses for me, that makes it seem like she's been waiting ALL DAY for this moment.
And who cares about all the spit up in the whole world? Not me, man. Not me.
sharris@blythevillecourier.com