IN CASE THE FACT THAT IT IS THE WEEKEND ALONE ISN'T DOING IT FOR YOU

It’s true, a baby can have gotten into a rhythm of consistently sleeping beautifully through the night, and then one night, for no particularly reason that you can ascertain, baby wakes up several times with hoarse cries and won’t be satiated unless fed or held. Such was a night last night, which made for a groggy and harried morning, one which consisted of simultaneously applying concealer with my pinky finger, while feeding Sloane mashed bananas and mangoes, AND putting whatever pieces of breakfast I can manage into my own mouth, while scanning the room for that black cardigan and telling myself not to forget to bring the baby food for daycare.  Then Sloane poops a big one while delightedly watching me run around looking for the keys as I’m holding the keys in one hand, and even though there are 4 minutes left before I will officially be late, I run upstairs to change the diaper, and find to my amazement that I’m in the car, backing out of the garage 3 minutes later, making me feel like I will maybe be a human today, after all. We did it, I tell Sloane, and accelerate as I turn out into the main street, thinking about how I need to give Krystal the check for next week and talk to her about a possible diaper rash that she should look out for. 

Next thing I know! Blue sirens in my rearview mirror and I’m pulling over to the side of the road, and medium-sized story short, we find our protagonist in tears with a speeding ticket in hand. The cop didn’t see the baby in the back and got sympathetic once he realized I was holding it together by a thin thread that morning, but it was after he gave me the ticket, and at that point I felt with full force how tired I was. I can’t fully explain the need to sob, but there it was, and it was brief. Don’t worry, I pulled it together, because I’m a grownup! And also because I’m not quite at the stage in my relationship with my daycare provider where I show up with mascara running down my face. 

Things that helped: seeing Sloane light up when I came around to get her once we arrived at daycare, squeezing her tight as I walked up the stairs, kissing her bright-eyed, soft-cheeked face. Also, this song, reading this essay, drinking an extremely strong and loud cup of coffee, and having my husband say the equivalent of ‘there, there’ on the phone as I sniffled out my story right after said event.  Then later on that morning, my apples were stolen from the office refrigerator.

If you wanted to get to the thesis of the whole thing, it could potentially be summarized by this sentence:

A rough morning happens to a generally fortunate person.  

Let’s round out this post with a couple of photos of a baby and some more balloons, shall we? And make good use out of this weekend?