Moment

When Julie dropped off Lyla at school this morning, she discovered that almost every kid had a cold. They were all fine on Friday, and at some point this weekend, they all got colds. Which is kind of cute.

If you recall, I was assigned by Julie to come home with a good nugget. There's a tiny table away from the play area, without anything interesting on it or near it. A teacher told me that several times today, Lyla abandoned toys and companions to sprint-crawl to that table and pull herself up on it, where she would then stand contentedly for a few minutes. She also still regularly crawls under the Exersaucer and hangs out; the teachers have named it Lyla's fort.

But here's the nugget: when I entered the baby room at 5:00, a teacher was holding Lyla in the rocking chair and making her giggle. It was the best moment I've ever had in a classroom.

Snot

Julie was on gooty last night, and...hold on, I should probably explain what "gooty" is. The first nickname we ever gave Lyla was goo, so when it's your turn on the weekend to wake up with her, you're on goo duty, also known as gooty. We are severely uncool.

Lyla had an awful night, waking up several times with snot pouring out of her nostrils. I stayed semi-unconscious since it wasn't my gooty night. Julie got about three hours of sleep.

It continued today. We think Lyla might have suddenly developed an allergy to the Earth's atmosphere. Or maybe yesterday's trip to the Renaissance Festival took its toll; maybe she's allergic to seeing tights on men. Or it could be a cold. Regardless, her nose is a snot waterfall, or in the spirit of made-up words, a snotterfall.

Dorky

We went to the Renaissance Festival today and during the Puke and Snot show, Lyla entertained herself with a water bottle. If you're feeling déjà vu, it's because this isn't the first time we've used a water bottle to get Lyla through an outdoor show. Just over three months ago, I posted this photo from the bird show at the zoo:


In other news, we got Lyla sunglasses, which is the stupidest idea for a nine-month-old. It's basically saying, "Here you go, I got you a teething toy shaped like little sunglasses!" Anyway, we did barely manage to snap one photo of them on her face:


She looks cool, and I so, so do not. I don't know what compelled me this morning to decide to wear a red striped polo shirt to the Renaissance Festival. In that vast sea of dorks, I looked by far the dorkiest.

Bookends

School workshops start Monday, so today was the last Friday of my parenting leave. Lyla slept until 8:45, which is odd since you can normally set your watch to her 7:00 wake-ups. What's really odd is that when I scrolled back to March 10th on this blog, which was the day Julie returned to work and I became Mr. Mom, Lyla also uncharacteristically slept until 8:45. Fine set of bookends, if you ask me.

Much of that March 10th post is devoted to my careful extraction of Lyla's booger with a turkey baster. Well now more often than not I just shove in a finger and get 'er done. So a lot has changed. Like, I've become more disgusting.

After Julie got home tonight, Lyla hunkered down and unleashed epic destruction in her pants. You know when MacGyver would sprint out of a building, mullet flapping in the wind, and dive to the ground just as the building exploded? It was like that.

If it's at all wise to reflect on the karmic significance of a baby's bowel movement, then I would say this one was full of positive energy. For one thing, the dear child held it all inside until Mama got home. Tag-teaming something like that is way easier than going it alone. And also, it revealed another set of bookends. My parenting leave started with a booger and ended with a storm of feces. Somehow, that feels right.

"Whoa, that was a doozy," I said to Julie as she washed her hands.

"No," she replied. "That was a twosie."

Nugget

I pick Lyla up from school, and Julie always wants to know how she did.

"Good."

She wants to know more than that. See, when Julie gets home from work, she recounts the highs and lows of her day with a level of detail and enthusiasm that boggles the mind. If I created sock puppets of her colleagues, I believe she would use them.

So when Julie asks me how Lyla did at school, she expects a narrative, not "Good."

We argued a little about how I should go about teasing information out of Lyla's teachers at the end of each long, tiring day. I think Julie half expected that they should automatically share highlights when I walk in the door. "Dan! Lyla spit up on the triangle block today. She also hit Bobby's head with a book. Ooh ooh, and she crawled a lot!"

"I don't need every detail," Julie conceded, "but I want a nugget every day."

"Just one?"

"One good nugget."

"I can ask them for a nugget each day."

"A good nugget."

"A good nugget. How was your day?"

"Oh my gosh! Well!"

And she was off.

Theatre

Anja's parents had us over for dinner tonight. Afterward, we adults positioned ourselves on the living room floor and watched the babies. It kind of felt like we should've all had lab coats and clipboards to record these primitive interactions. Babies are like cave people: grunting, fighting, whining for food. And we just sat for an hour or so and laughed at them like it was baby improv night at the theater in the round.




Anja is almost one year old, so the heavy-handed parent in me wishes Lyla would pay more attention when Anja chews, walks, and says the occasional word. I feel like pulling Lyla aside, like a coach pulling aside a promising but immature player, and saying, "See Anja over there? See how she moves one foot in front of the other? Do it like that."

Best

"Lyla, who's home?"






It's the best part of the day.