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My Morning After Working the Evening Shift: Extended Edition

03/14/12

My Morning After Working the Evening Shift: Extended Edition

Permalink 12:21:00 pm by cassie, Categories: Announcements [A]

So facebook statii are fun for quick quips but this morning truly deserves to be expounded upon. Backing up to yesterday, I woke up at 5AM, as I do most every mornings, after yet another night of my snorting four month old waking up and giving me the stink eye all night. This is nothing new. I got through the day fine and worked a short shift from 7p-11p last night. I got home and ended up staying awake for another half an hour with Mark, who was finishing up some work for the evening. I was in bed at 1230 and right as I lay my head down on the blessed pillow, this child came alive. I caught a few hours in between 2 and 5AM and got up with the alarm and both of the kids who also got up at 5:15 (HOW DO THEY KNOW???). I chugged a cup of tea and went about my day. By then I had amassed some steam so I threw in a load of laundry, did the dishes and put a load of dishes in the dishwasher, made french toast and an omelet for Amelia and I to eat for breakfast, and then sat down for a few minutes before I needed to get things together to go out to meet my friend Grace and her kids for lunch and a movie. I sat for five minutes before I smelled a suspicious burning smell. The dishwasher was the offender, and when I opened it up on the drying cycle, there was my favorite spatula melting quietly on the heating element at the bottom of the washer. Lovely. The house smells awesome now.

After scraping off the melted plastic, I gave up on sitting down and made myself some coffee to take with me and gathered up all the stuff I needed for going out. I changed both kids into presentable clothing, new diapers, and buckled the baby into his carseat carrier, which is totally just inconvenient anyhow because he's huge and it's unwieldy and too heavy for me to carry comfortably. Just when I picked up the seat, he gave me this quizzical look and I suddenly had a very bad feeling. I said, "Don't you poop!" and just as I said it, he let loose with an extended pooping sequence. Again, HOW DO THEY KNOW?? I yanked him out of the carseat as quickly as I could and narrowly missed another blowout before I changed him again and packed him up.

We all made it outside to the car and I had nearly clipped his seat into the car when Amelia announced, "Mom, I'm really chilly!" I looked down at her. She was wearing a jacket. It was 50 degrees out. Then I saw her feet. Her bare feet.

Third time's a charm. We went back inside to get her boots on, and on my way down the steps, I fell onto both my knees in the driveway while carrying Elias. He didn't even bump and got gently set down in the grass in his carrier while Amelia stood gaping and I silently warded away many of the bad words I've heard in the course of my life from coming out of my mouth. I had ripped the last pair of jeans that actually fit me in my post-pregnancy limbo, Amelia's stuffed dog that I had also been carrying had flown out of my hand and onto the lawn, and I had broken the hood of the baby carrier as it caught on my belt when I fell. Amelia just stood there bemoaning the displaced stuffed puppy. You carry them for what? Ten months? And all they worry about is their stuffed dog. Just warning you now that someday your precious little newborn infant who you *think* believes you're, like, the awesomest thing ever is going to turn two and a half and you're going to beef it in the driveway, your dignity shredded just like the bleeding left knee of your jeans, your teeth gritted and back thrown out, and your precious, precious baby is going to be extremely concerned about that ratty old stuffed dog getting a piece of dust on it.

I got up after a minute trying to recoup my own personal moment of peace and muttered what was likely a selfish prayer that nothing else zany happen for a little while, at least, buckled everyone in, and drove right to a Dunkin Donuts, where I ordered a large and very soothing almond flavored coffee. And everything was strangely better after that.

1 comment

Comment from: Gram [Visitor]
GramSo glad you revert to Juxtapose on occasion, Cass. I really enjoy your "long" stories! I'm happy to know my great-grandchildren are not duds!! :-)
03/14/12 @ 14:16
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I like to multi-task: wife, writer, nurse, Christian, ne'er do well. I do all with equal gusto.

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