in love with the end of the day

Day 4 of 7.

7:15-9:15am. Alarm, sleep 15 more minutes, then get up. Genghis is up on the early side of 7:30 and he's headed to the babysitter's at 9, so I go in to his room right away for some quality time together. I think he's been missing me (could I possibly be projecting?). We spend a while in his room organizing his animals. Then I use his coyote hand puppet to sniff around the room asking "Where's Genghis" while Genghis squeals in a corner until coyote finds him and tickles his tummy. We enjoy this until Dad comes in for a morning hug and Genghis asserts his independence by stiff-arming Dad and running out of the room.

We have leftover pancakes for breakfast, along with yogurt and grapefruit. I think about all the years of delicious, fresh grapefruit I missed out on when I was grew up in Arizona and didn't like the fruit.

We get ready to go to the babysitters, which involves the traumatic experience of packing up Genghis's truck in a small toy bucket. He demands to have the truck back and I finally distract him with a pink balloon from the bow party last night. He follows me around the house for the rest of the morning, softly repeating "boon".

The babysitter comes over at 9am to pick Genghis up. She happened to be in the area, so we arranged for a pick up instead of drop off. This is Genghis's first time with this babysitter, so I have overpacked his bag with toys, food, a change of clothes, and a list of "Things to Know About Genghis", including a warning clause about the hazards of diaper changes. Genghis cries when I leave him in the car but I try not to think about that the rest of the morning.

9:15am-12:45pm. Time for work. I put in my trusty retainers and slog through another section of the paper. Almost done. Take a break for a client phone call and let myself get distracted by email more often than yesterday. By noon, I have a complete rough draft of the paper and quickly close the document so I'm not tempted to re-read. For the next 45 minutes I listen in on a conference call. My goal in this set of conference calls is to try to find one useful thing to chime in with on each call, so I can break the habit of being a total mute. Unsuccessful yet again. I hang up early to go pick up Genghis.

12:45-4:45pm. Genghis is having a jolly time at the babysitters when I arrive, going back and forth on the rocking chair and yelling "Weee!" (Usually rocking or spinning of any kind is accompanied by this phrase.) The babysitter reports that Genghis enjoyed playing with his truck in the yard, following their 10-year-old as she lured him around the house with a giant bouncy ball, playing with the neck wrinkles of the aging family dog, and eating just a bit of vanilla ice cream for lunch. He also obediently laid down during his whole diaper change. Go figure.

I have a hard time getting Genghis out of the house and into the car, which is a good sign. Looks like the trial run of babysitting went well, so we're set to do it again next week.

The only downside I can see is that they live on a dirt road. That combined with the spring thaw means my car is completely covered in mud. Every time I brush up against the car, I have a new mud cake on my outfit (if lounge pants and a sweatshirt can be called an outfit). I take a mental note to wash the car ASAP. I like to wear those lounge pants often.

Genghis falls asleep on the way home but I still have to pry the balloon (he's had it with him since the morning) out of his tight grip before getting him in the house and into bed. He rouses during the transition and immediately looks around for the balloon. After a brief mental debate, I pull out another balloon from the party stash and let him take it to bed. 15 minutes later, I am worried that he has surely strangled himself on the string (bad mom, bad) so I sneak in to his room, grateful to see the balloon floating on the other side. I guess he was pretty tired.

Nap time involves some scripture reading, a bit of work, a bit of vegging to TV online, and a half-hearted attempt to reorganize the office. I think I'm feeling Friday tired. I bravely eat a whole carrot instead of one of the frosted cupcakes on the counter. In full disclosure, I also have to change my clothes because I sneezed twice and bladder control at this point in pregnancy is just not what it used to be. Genghis wakes up after about an hour. We have a snack together (still holding out on that cupcake) and then pack up to go to the car wash and enjoy the rest of the afternoon at the park.

Genghis brings his balloon along.

4:45-7pm. After the park, we pick up Abe from work. We briefly flirt with the idea of take-out, and then turn towards home where I scrounge together a dinner out of the items left in the fridge. Not bad, but leaves me craving Indian curry. Genghis lets the balloon out of his site during bath time and I hide it in the laundry room. We enjoy a lovely evening of play time (my favorite part of the day is often between bath and bed). Genghis shows me his new trick of sticking his fingers in his eyes and spinning around. This time he is concentrating too hard to say "Weee!" He also runs into the bookcase. Should I worry?

7-?pm. Finally! An evening with just Abe and I, and no work on the agenda. Abe just finished the dishes while I wrote this post. I hear him setting up Agricola. And those cupcakes are waiting for me.