So far, so good.

So, we’re finishing up our second week. All told, it’s been a pretty good experience, largely because Katrina has taken on a lion’s share of the work. This whole week she’s let me sleep all night, every night, while she handled all the diapers, feedings, and whatnot. I’m not sure what I did to deserve this treatment, but if I knew, I reckon I could get filthy rich selling the secret. Coming back to work, with a week’s backlog waiting, is less than fun, and I suspect having a full night’s sleep every night during the ‘digging back out’ process is perhaps a new gold standard in treating your man right, surpassing even the customary activities of March 14.

We’ve had ‘Mimi’ (that’s Katrina’s mom) here this week, which has also been good- she’s been awesome about helping with the unbelievable amounts of laundry this little one produces, about holding or watching her for a bit, and with darn near everything else. Let me go ahead and pass on some advice I received, though: If you’re thinking about having parents come to help, do this: Have one come, stay for a week, then do a week alone. Then maybe have another one come, and stay for a week. Left up to my own devices, I’d keep a grandmother here probably for the next two months, but there exists a weird effect between a new mom and an old mom. Old mom knows the way she always did things, and knew they worked pretty well, whereas new mom wants to try out her own methods and whatnot, and the dynamic between the two women can get a bit weird. It’s like- have you ever watched a kid trying to tie their shoes? And eventually you get frustrated seeing them fumbling around and screwing it up for five minutes, so you finally do it for them, and then you wonder why the kid is mad at you? It’s like that, but with poop and bottles and whatnot. Katrina and her mom have actually been doing really well on this count, but here at the tail end of the week I can definitely detect a little tension forming, and I think it’s probably good that we’re not going for another week. Right now I think the plan is to go it alone for a week, then have my mom come down the week after that.

As for the kid herself, she’s freakin’ adorable. Despite me being preoccupied with work and trying to stay caught up with household chores, she and I have been having some pretty good time together. There seems to be a few windows between sleep, eat, and poop where she wakes up and checks out the world, so I try to rush in and steal her during those times. One bit that I’ve voluntarily picked up, and am enjoying, is the bedtime story. Of course, she has no idea what I’m saying, but she seems to like looking at the book, at least, so I’ll take it!

Bottom line- so far, so good! Of course, once Katrina has to go back to school, or she gets sick of giving me free nights off, it may be a different story. Stay tuned!