February 22, 2006 @ 5:21 am | Filed under: Family Adventures
This has not been my finest morning as a wife and mother.
I woke at five to the sound of Wonderboy crying over the monitor. I get up shortly after five most mornings (alone) with no particular difficulty, but this morning, when my child needed my attention, I seemed incapable of accomplishing the simplest tasks. Such as shutting off the baby monitor so Scott could get a couple more hours of sleep. When I reached for the monitor, I knocked my water bottle off the nightstand.
“You dropped your water bottle,” mumbled Scott helpfully and groggily from his side of the bed.
I fumbled in the dark, found the bottle, returned it to the nightstand. But it wouldn’t stay put. Kept wobbling and falling as if I were trying to put it on an uneven surface. I felt the nightstand to see if someone had left, say, a Pretty Pony in the way. What I felt was a nice flat surface covered with water.
I was, you see, trying to put the water bottle on the table upside down.
So now the whole nightstand was swimming. What’s that, you ask? What do I keep on my nightstand? (Besides the occasional Pretty Pony?) Why, books, of course!
Frantically I snatched my stack of books off the nightstand, blearily hoping they hadn’t gotten too wet. In the process I managed to rip the cover off The Pickwick Papers. I also heard a rattle and clink that indicated I had knocked my glasses to the floor.
“You dropped your glasses,” contributed my ever-helpful husband.
(OK, to be fair, during all of my aforementioned fumblings and spillings and cover-rippings, he made numerous offers of help, all of which I ignored because I was too sleep-addled and baby-rattled to muster gracious words of assent.)
So now I’m slapping my wet hands on the damp carpet which is scattered with soggy books, attempting to locate my glasses by, you know, smashing them under my blind fists. This is all the more irritating because I don’t usually wear my glasses. I wear night-and-day contacts. Except for times when I, just to throw out an example because it happens to currently apply, have managed to scratch my cornea and not only cannot wear my beloved contacts but am forced to smear ointment on my eyeball twice a day. Which is, I must interject, a truly disgusting sensation.
The knowledge of the ointment-smearing that lies ahead of me this day does not improve my before-dawn mood. I continue my ineffectual carpet-slapping, muttering darkly under my breath.
“Why don’t you let me take care of this,” says Scott in the gentle, patient tone of a man who is quietly regretting dropping out of his band after college in order to take a semi-respectable job and save money for an engagement ring. This clumsy, inept creature is the woman for whom he sacrificed a promising career as a rock star?
“Fine,” I snarl, such a sweet and grateful wife.
Wonderboy, meanwhile, has not uttered another peep after that first ear-splitting wail. Like his father, he quite sensibly believes that five in the morning is a time meant for slumber, not humorless imitations of the I Love Lucy show.
Scott got the mess cleaned up and I, finding myself wide awake at the time of day when it is my custom to arise, naturally sank back into bed and slept another two hours.
And awoke to discover a blizzard in progress, and me without any milk in my refrigerator.
Oh, and I forgot to fill the bird feeder, too.
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Oh, Lissa, I do hope your day improves! It can only go up from here, right?
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 6:14 amWell, it’s a whole lot better than a flooded basement, eh? Loved your painting stories this morning…
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 6:24 amAh, so you and I are having the same sort of day(s).
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 6:43 amI vote we have a cuppa tea.
(((hugs))!! I hope your day improved from then on! But like Andrea I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who has days (many!) like this.
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 7:10 amYou know, one of the nice things about the Internet is sharing with other Moms our imperfections and humanity and realizing we’re all in the same boat. Hope your day improves tremendously!
The glasses thing is tricky for me too, though I only wear contacts during the day (and I do love them), many a night I’ve gone helplessly searching around for them with someone needing my attention and inadvertently waking up my early-rising hubbie.
The funniest case, though, was in our old house where I had to trek downstairs to get to the bathroom. One night, I made my way down and found it particularly hard to see - I did notice that things seemed especially dark. It wasn’t until I switched on the bathroom light that I realized I had put on a pair of sunglasses. So that’s what they meant in the song!
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 7:34 amOnly went back to bed for 2 more hours? That’s a pretty speedy recovery, I’d say!I would have called it a day right then and there!LOL!
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 8:26 amHope your day goes smoothly from here out.
a man who is quietly regretting dropping out of his band after college in order to take a semi-respectable job and save money for an engagement ring.
Never. Never ever. Not even once.
Well…rarely, at least.
This clumsy, inept creature is the woman for whom he sacrificed a promising career as a rock star?
It wasn’t really that promising. Which is why it’s only rarely.
I kid! I kid!
And you are many things. Inept is not one of them. (He subtly neglects to correct the “clumsy” part. But he does resolve to begin referring to her as a “creature” more often. And to continue referring to himself in the third person. It makes him feel like a professional athlete.)
The creature forgot to mention the best part (or perhaps was unaware of the coda): after drying off the books and mopping up the wet carpet, the sleep-deprived hubband spent four very bleary minutes looking for the creature’s glasses, to absolutely no avail. Under the bed, under the nightstand, inside and behind the basket of knitting that’s been untouched for five months, he said ever so snarkily, but nope. No glasses. Finally in desperation, he raised his bleary eyes to actually look on the nightstand. Which is where he saw a pair of slightly damp glasses, gleaming at him smugly from their cozy and obvious perch between the lamp and the water bottle on the otherwise-now-barren nightstand. Where they’d been the entire time.
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 8:47 amMelissa, I hope your day has improved. Grab a cup of hot tea, sit by the roaring fire and enjoy the snow! Snow can make even the worst day become clean and beautiful!
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 9:40 amMelissa, I hope your day has improved. Grab a cup of hot tea, sit by the roaring fire and enjoy the snow! Snow can make even the worst day become clean and beautiful!
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 9:41 amGlad I’m not the only one who has some rocky starts some mornings. I hope your day has improved!
Posted on February 22nd, 2006 at 2:16 pm