This Morning

Oh man. That was a rough start. I feel like a Garfield strip - Mondays! Arg.

The baby woke up sqwaking at 7:30. I went in, stripped off his soggy diaper and my heart seized. There was one left. One. Left. The van is still in the shop. Matt's got the car at his office in BLAINE. This was our final diaper. Oh boy.

Put it on him and shuffled into the kitchen. Tried to make some coffee, dumping the old grounds out onto a mountain of garbage in the can. Ignore the desperate need for garbage to be emptied. Fed the baby while he's sitting on the counter. He reaches past me for my Spanish smoked paprika. He shoved it in his mouth and discovered, this was an unpleasant sensation.

Gave him a bottle to counteract the spicy and sent him on his merry way into the living room. Went in search of coffee (a recurring theme.) I filled it up and just as I brought the Happy Wake-y Juice to my lips I hear, "Urrrrrrgggh. Uhhhhhhg." His little eyebrows are up in a sympathetic way and his eyes are watering. "Urrraaaahhhg." Oh no. I start a Flight of the Bumblebee type run around the apartment hunting Lo & High in a vain attempt to find one more diaper. I'd take anything - they didn't have to be the happy hippie non-cholorine, no perfumes, resembling craft paper ones that I'd gotten him at the last trip. Luv's would be fine. Walgreen's generic. Anything! Of course, there was nothing. Anywhere. I debated taking off the offensive dipe, and replacing it with one of my less than favorite tea towels.

The only way he was going to get a clean diaper was if I went and got him one. I'm in my nightgown, hair doing this new kind of "fooowp" style thing and really, really not ready for the world. Vince on the other hand is having a GREAT time. For now. It's anyone's guess when the poo turns on him and I get a yowling, screeching angry boy. After I turned around a couple more times, trying to use my creative brain to come up with something to make this better, before I made peace with what had to happen. I had to put on pants, a bra... I had to walk to the store.

I want my car back.

....There are diapers in the car... MATT. Arg. I send him a message that he should drive back and bring me the car diapers.

The Smell Bad Kid & I pony up in the stroller and cruise down the street to the just opened Whole Foods. Everyone is stocking shelves and barely awake. Matt calls and says he'd happily come bring me the car diapers. I sighed heavily and said, no, I'm here. We'll just get some here.

Do you know how much these things cost? Crazy yuppie Whole Foods diapers are $14! Now, maybe you're not in the disposable diaper business, so I'll let you know here in no uncertain terms - that is ridiculously expensive! I cursed myself for not using cloth. Then I contemplated the mountain of laundry already waiting for me. Uuugghh. "I'm not even supposed to BE here today," I muttered. (Clerks. No one in the aisle got it.) I grabbed them and turned to inspect the coffee because I'm pretty much out and still hadn't even gotten a cup. $13 for a pound! What the... I could walk out of there spending $50 and only have gotten three items. This place is nutty!

I checked out and sympathized with the girl ringing me up - her eyes were really red. She looked so tired. I felt bad that by even being there, I justified Whole Foods opening so early and thereby forcing her to already be at work when she could really use another hour or two of nap. Great. Now I have guilt. Vince gave her a lot of adorable babbles, though, that seemed to go a long way.

I wheeled him out and jogged back towards our house. We'd almost made it and still no tears! We were going to make it! Oh no.. old lady making eye contact. "Well, hello there!"

"Good morning," I stopped so she could admire my spawn and catch my breath.

"He's so cute!"

"Yeah, he's a morning person!"

"Pardon me?"

"Morning! He's... He's! A! Morning! Person!!" She just nodded.

"Very smiley."

"Yeah... YES! He! IS!"

She just stood there. I started to do a little side step thing. "Okay! Wave bye Vince! BYE BYE!" He doesn't wave bye bye, by the way. At least he's never done it on purpose. I just keep saying it to nice people so... I don't know what, so they won't take it personally when he just gives them a toothy, drooly grin.

I trot the block and a half back to our apartment and get him out of the stroller so he can walk up the steps. He loves the steps. Except, he doesn't walk up the steps. He walks down the sidewalk and contemplates the block. Oh.. man! Hands full of stroller and groceries, I try to coax him in my direction. "C'mon Vin! C'mon, let's go inside! Look! Look in the window! Is that Eli? Hi Eli! Let's go pull his tail. C'mon!"

No dice. He starts to walk away. I look at him, look inside, look at him... I'm starting to sweat and probably smell. "VinCENT! Come ON! Over... here... Oh MAN." I put everything down and amble over to him, hitching up my jeans. They definitely smell. I should really do some laundry.

He starts to walk down the block. Okay, I reason, we'll walk down the block and he'll get tired and then THEN we'll change the poo diaper and maybe he'll take a nap. We walk for a little bit. He's so cute! Look at him just -- and then he fell. He still can't quite catch himself. I tried to grab his arm, but his face still hit the concrete. Not too hard, but hard enough. It scared him and scraped his little nose. Oh, his nose! He howled. Then he took another deep breath and really put some air into it - this other worldly shrieking, howling, banshee wailing of an abused child. And, oh, these big crocodile tears pouring down his little face. He was fine other than the scraped nose, but the sound was enough to wake the dead.

I ushered him inside and tried to come up with something to get him to either appease him, or at least distract him enough to get to that diaper. I got him in, got him changed and put him down, still howling. I tried to kiss away the pain, but at this point, he seemed to just be crying because he wasn't ready to stop. I picked him up and gave him more kisses. He smacked me across the face like we were on Dynasty. He was okay. Lowering him into his crib, I smoothed down his little patch of growing in hair and backed out of his bedroom, closing the door behind me.

Taking a deep breath I reached for the pot of coffee. It'd been on so long, the timer automatically turned it off and now it was cooling. I poured a fresh(ish) cup and contemplated the garbage. I lifted out the overflowing back (shoving the Chinese take out container back in) and went to put it outside the door - where there was already another bag. It had flies buzzing around it and the whole back hallway reeked. Oh, man - we're the garbage neighbors! Gross. I hobbled out barefooted and hefted the two bags into the dumpster. Shambled back in only to realize - I left all the dirty baby laundry in his room! It'll have to wait until later this afternoon. Sigh. It never ends.

So, I took my cold coffee to the computer to whine about my adventures.