6/26/05 - Our Day in a Nutshell

I've been so busy lately getting so many things "businessy" done that to sit in front of the computer for something I enjoy seems slightly foreign. That, and I'm thinking of all of the things that still need to be done, but I'm just here wasting time . . . But wasting time isn't right because I truly love to sit and think back on the week, and all of the neat things Joshua's done, and if the dishes sit in the sink for another couple of hours then so be it.

What a great day it's been for Joshua and me. (Poor Tim is slaving away at work and missing all of the fun, but we do appreciate so much that he is willing to work so that I can get these amazing times with Joshua.) We went to church this morning - we've been going to the late church service that starts at 11:30 because we really like the childcare workers at that time. They do such a great job with Joshua, and he seems to do better with them than with workers at any other hour. When we came to pick him up he was smiling and happy, which always makes me feel so much better about leaving him - and now I have even more reason to feel better . . . he's signing to them! Of course, none of them knew what he was saying, but it was pretty neat to pick him up and have the workers ask what it meant when he twisted his little fists in the air ("all done") or pointed the finger of one hand at the palm of the other ("more" - or his version of it, anyway). To me, that means he's comfortable enough there to be his own charming little self. Whew, what a relief.

After church we went by Taco Bell - one of our all time favorite places to eat - to get lunch, and decided that we needed to introduce Joshua to the food there. Unlike every Waller I know, he HATED it! (We ordered pintos and cheese with no sauce, and I thought he'd eat it up.) I guess it was a little too thick . . . my deduction, anyway, from the excessive gagging episodes we had to endure from his two teensy bites. Oh well, he'll learn.

After lunch naptime lasted about an hour, and then one of my favorite things in the world happened. Joshua was still groggy enough from the nap that he fell asleep in bed with me when he was nursing. Oh, how I wish that would happen more often! His sweet little sleep face with sheet wrinkles all over, and then he's nursing and his eyes roll back in his head . . . I lay there and try not to let him notice me looking at him . . . I even pretend to be asleep, averting my eyes so quickly if he looks up at me, faking that sleep-breathing loudness and peering through mostly closed eyelids. Then he falls asleep and we both lay there, cuddled up together and warm under the covers, and he has to be smooshed up against me somehow in order to sleep perfectly peacefully. And I get to sleep, too, and we both wake up feeling so good and refreshed and somehow even more awake than we had been before.

Then we went to the new fitness club that's opening down the street, and found out that it's huge and beautiful inside, with every amenity that you'd ever want - and somehow it's even considerably cheaper than my Y membership. So I signed up and am canceling my other membership, and I feel like a got a really great deal. Like how you feel when you find boxes of cereal on a really great sale at the grocery store so you stock up and buy like 10 boxes, and leave thinking "Man, what a great bargain!"

Dinner was a little more frustrating - it always is for me, since it's getting later in the day, and I think that Joshua should be so grown up and should neatly and completely eat each thing that I put in front of him . . . right. Then I remember that he's a BABY; somehow I'd forgotten that, and I find myself saying the most asinine things that I can ever imagine myself saying - like telling him to stop whining. I'm admitting that I really did say that. I'd like partial credit that it did occur to me to be one of the dumbest things I've ever said, but it came out of my mouth, nonetheless. So mostly dinner consisted of cheerios, with the occasional bite of peas, or bananas, or macaroni and cheese. (The aforementioned mac-and-cheese I thought he'd really enjoy, since he did last night, but somehow it offended him tonight and he decided to drop each piece off the edge of the tray, instead.)

My greatest parenting moment, though, came before bath time. You know those moments that you wish you'd have more of, but they seem to come all too rarely - moments of brilliant insight and patience? Moments that shine in your memory as ones that really make a difference in this little one's day? My moment came after the nightly tooth-brushing battle. When I decided, "Why in the world can't he play with his toothbrush?" So we sat on the bathroom floor, the water in the tub becoming tepid, but during this momentous occasion, I didn't even care. Joshua played in my lap with his toothbrush, mostly brushing my teeth with the wrong end, the "tigger" end, of the toothbrush, but sometimes getting the bristle end in there, too. He laughed and laughed, that deep, chortling sparkly-eyed belly laugh that only babies and little kids can produce, and that makes you feel joyful so deep inside. And he crawled over my legs, from one side to the other and back again, toothbrush in hand the whole time. Bristles all over the bathroom floor, but you know what I decided? The moment was so much grander than me worrying about germs or hygiene and ruining it. We can always get another toothbrush tomorrow.
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