Day Two

6:45-s wakes up by making noises/yelling at the ceiling in order to test her voice. S tells me that I can get her when she gets frustrated.

7:15 The noises from the other room stop, and I go back to sleep.

Am I a poor parent for letting her shout and gurgle at the ceiling for thirty minutes? Or was I actually doing her a favor, helping her to develop the ability to "self-soothe?" You'll hear people say self-soothe a lot if you have a child. Or was I helping her to become more autonomous in a world that verily demands it? Or was I just tired from getting home from work at 12:30 and would have slept through anything short of a natural disaster?

Interpolation: From comments by sixth-grade science students on proposed changes to tobacco labeling with graphic images.

The least effective one is the feet with the label on it because some people might say "it's just feet they won't kill you."

The one that doesn't work is the picture with the little kid crying. It's just a baby crying. I mean, babies cry all the time so that won't work.

The one that is most effective is the one with the bald macho guy with the beard and shirt with the No Smoking logo because teenagers like macho truck drivers.

The one with the person injecting nicotine in his baby is bad because it's a cartoon and nobody takes cartoons seriously.

8 A.M. s awakes. Do we:

a) Read a book together while I prop her up against the couch. (I've noticed that she likes the longer books rather than the typical little kid board books. She is possibly a genius, or maybe just incapable of seeing over the larger books and therefore forced to look at them more intently.

b) Lie down on the ground and attempt to eat animals that are dangling above her. (I've noticed that this toy has become less effective today, and I'm worried that it's because s has decided to become a vegetarian).

c) Sit up on her bumbo and select various toys to pick up and shove in her mouth. (This whole process can be frustrating to watch because she doesn't exactly have the greatest motor skills, so it's hard not to just put the toy practically in her mouth in the first place to avoid watching her try to figure out how to pick something up).

d) Sit with daddy and exchange smiles and noises. (She seems to have the least patience for this activity. After all these years spent honing my conversational skills it turns out that to my baby I'm incredibly boring).

e) Change diaper.

f) Give her the bottle.

8-9 Some combination of the above.

9-10 We take naps.

10:00 I decide to change her out of her sleeper. I've debated only changing her at 5 o'clock right before S comes home because it's easier, but I keep reminding myself that I'm also lil s's father and perhaps having her sit around in damp urine isn't the best thing even if it's the easiest thing. A lesson that it seems I'll be learning for the rest of my life.

And yes, I did put her top sweater on over her head inside out. And because she screamed during the process, babies have giant heads, I left her in the inside out shirt, which, being inside out, sort of bunched up a bit and pretty much looked like an inside out belly shirt. I did wind up changing her after three hours or so because even my fashion alarm was going off.

11:20-11:30 Nap. Can it be called a nap if my child spends ten minutes in her room. I think she slept. I don't know. She decided that it would be more fun to yell at the ceiling. Perhaps I should try it myself someday.

Interpolation: The opening to the DFW posthumously published book "The Pale King."

Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-​brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the a.m. heat: shattercane, lamb’s‑quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscadine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-​print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother’s soft hand on your cheek.

Afternoon-Spent alternating on A-F in one fashion or another.

Interpolation:

From the autobiography of Mark Twain

Captain Sellers did me the honor to profoundly detest me from that day forth. When I say he did me the honor, I am not using empty words. It was a very real honor to be in the thoughts of so great a man as Captain Sellers, and I had wit enough to appreciate it and be proud of it. It was distinction to be loved by such a man; but it was a much greater distinction to be hated by him, because he loved scores of people; but he didn't sit up nights to hate anybody but me.



2:30-Whenever.

We're off. Rest cheek against smooth forehead. Marvel at the half-moon fingernails that dig into skin. Watch strawberry blond hair rise like wheat before harvest. Catch deep blue eyes and smile.