Howdy,
Maybe it is. Maybe I just can’t help myself. The writer in me.
But I truly believe I’m not embellishing this just for the story, though I admit it seems awfully convenient (only in timing! Not as a circumstance.)
So, I’m back with Day Two of THREE of stay-at-home dad with three kids while Sarah is out of town traveling to and attending a conference for work, and I’m still surviving.
Last night — cover your ears faint of heart — Riah pooped in his sleep with a GUSH loud enough to wake me.
Then it was like having been roused by an alarm and fitfully avoiding and awaiting the snooze to blast again; I knew I needed to wake more, enough to get out of bed, and change his diaper.
… And prep and feed him a bottle while he was awake.
I checked my watch: 2:22. Even in my daze, I remember all the digital 2’s.
I started with making the bottle so I could get him going on that while I changed him.
I could smell that he would also need his outfit changed.
When I stripped him of his pajamas — and this is where you might be tempted to sniff out embellishment or licentia poetica, but you’d be wrong, and, also, I’d warn you against too much sniffing around here — and unstrapped his diaper, I saw the biggest poopetica you’d ever want to imagine.
I’m telling you, that diaper was as well used as any we’ve ever put on that boy.
And I was already thinking — again, that writer guy — this is crazy; my first solo middle of the night care with Riah and he’s unleashing his best shot. Poop everywhere (okay, that’s embellished; it wasn’t everywhere). So ironic. What a mess!
I got him in a new diaper and new sleep clothes, and he barfed. Biggest. Barf. Ever.
For him, I’m not kidding.
Technically it wasn’t a barf, as in vomit, but it was more than a spit-up. Seemed like the better portion of the bottled I’d fixed plus whatever was rumbling in his stomach that he hadn’t already passed out the other end showered onto him and me, as I held him in the elbow of one arm, and down with a SPLAT on the floor. Huge puddle.
2:22 to 3:05 a.m.
I remember the 3:05 because for a moment I thought I might make it back in bed by 3:03 and I was dream-thinking that it was weird … all those 2’s and then the 3’s.
That’s day 2 of 3.
—Billy
Feeding. Cleaning. Repeating.
P.S. I’m too exhausted and distracted to prioritize word count tonight. Or even calculating it. Also, much respect to single parents out there who are parenting. It’s hard.
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