A review of sorts

4:32 A.M. Listen to s crying for a total of two minutes. Presumably she falls back asleep or at the very least, I do.

5:46 A.M. Awake so s crying.

8:13 A.M. Awake to find s and S snuggled up in bed next to me. Attempt to fall back asleep while a squirrel patiently pushes an acorn from one side of the attic to another. Disdain sleeping. Dream about getting up into the attic and exterminating squirrels. Briefly consider how scared I'd be. Worry probably unfounded due to relative mismatch in body weight/size. Though, the true difference may actually be the incredibly advantage in brain type possessed by mammals.

8:30 A.M. Begin reading a book downstairs in the very gray morning light pushing through the blinds.

9:37 A.M. These sentences from the Evolution of Childhood reminding me, yet again, why I am not a scientist in reference to the difference in slope between brain/body size.
"Ontogeny may explain the differences: since both brain and body growth are hyperplastic-dependent on cell division and proliferation-in embryonic or early postnatal life, genes pleiotropically affecting both brain and body hyperplasia may mediate steeper slopes for macroevolutionary allometry, with metabolic rate-to-body size scaling setting an upper limit on the slopes."

Note that I should probably get back to reading Being and Time for a nice break from the book.

10:00 A.M. Mother and daughter arrive from morning slumber. Breakfast has already been consumed by important parties, daughter/me.

10:37 A.M. While washing dishes.
M: I thought you were going to make breakfast?
S: You said you already ate breakfast?
M: Yeah, but I thought you were going to make a real breakfast.
S: Fine. What do you want me to make?
M: I'm not really in the mood anymore.

11-12:30-Read short stories from Drinking Coffee Elsewhere/watch baby s spit bubbles on her shirt.

1-3:20-Depart the house to obtain food for the upcoming week. Baby s is asleep in the car. Briefly talk about how s isn't supposed to be taking motion naps, that she's supposed to learn how to sleep on her own. Oh well. Take a slight back way to get to Trader Joe's and congratulate myself inwardly/outwardly.

2:42-2:49-Practice patience while attempting to leave the TJ's parking lot. Fail. Succeed. Fail. Ultimately succeed then fail.

3-3:20 Have a brief conversation about nannies with S. Decry her inability to make a decision. Damn pro's and cons list. I briefly elucidate my distaste for her cyclical way of making decisions that tends to wear me down, such that, when the decision is ultimately hers it is not made out of my indifference but my lack of fortitude against the test of ever deepening circles of uncertainty.
S: Just tell me what to do.
M: I've been waiting to hear that for seven years.
Note: Tell her what we should do.

3:45
S: I'm making that chicken pot pie.
M: It's four fifteen. I'm not hungry.
S: By the time it's out it's be 4:15.
M: I'm not sure that's helping your case. Are we getting old?

4:15-6 P.M.
Read some more of the book I don't understand. Actually look up ontogeny and phylogenetic, so I have some idea of what the author is talking about. Play with Sadie.
A is for ate babies crying.
B is for babies bawling
C is for cids crying.
D is for, well, you get the picture.

7-9 P.M. Bath for lil s. Books for lil s. Repeated attempts to put s to bed thwarted by maniacal crying. s falls asleep about seven times curled up against either S or my chest only to break out in tears as soon as we put her down in her crib. Nerves frayed. Consider what the going rate is for a child.


9:15 P.M. s finally goes down to sleep.

S: Okay, what do you want to do tonight? We have five minutes until she wakes up.
M: You could massage my sore calves while we watch a movie.
S: Let's go downstairs and listen to see if we can hear a beeping nose.
M: This is what you want to do in our five minutes?
S: Sometimes I get focused on minute things like this.

9:30-11:00-Watch the movie The Cove about the wholesale killing of dolphins in a particular Japanese city Taji. Note that problem appears to be a microcosm of the greater problem facing humanity, ie, we can't always have more. Related to a growth economy instead of a steady state economy and an increasing dependence on globalization rather than local communities to achieve optimum levels of sustainability. Oh well.

11:15
S brings up a conversation about who we should hire as a nanny.
M: Thanks for proving my earlier point.


Interlude:
S: You can't make your joke about tuna safe dolphin. I've decided it's not longer funny.

M: Can I at least keep the one about drinking oil off the nozzle?

S: Until we watch a movie about our complicity in wars related to fossil fuels.

M: Oh. No more documentaries then.