I am writing this from a ripe 7:42 in the morning. I've been up for all of 23 minutes. RB has started sleeping past 7 some days and I have selfishly taken advantage. If he's not up, I'm not. It's a new change.
For a few months, I was getting up at 5:30, giving him a bottle, and getting him back to sleep, and then I was staying up. I'd work out or I'd clean a bit or I would just sit and TikTok, my choice depending on how my brain and body felt. I had for a few weeks been trying to figure out how to drop that 5:30 feed. RB gets more than enough calories in the daytime to sustain himself at night, and that particular feeding was necessary at first, but toward the end of doing it, it was more habitual for us than anything else. The move to Texas offered both the opportunity and the chaos we both needed to break that. Now most days we sleep until 6:30 or 7, then he's up and has his first bottle. The late mornings of past 7 are nice because we both get up at a human time. However, if he sleeps past 7, he wakes up ...spicy. Emotionally. Basically what I'm trying to say is it has its pros and it's cons.
Let's skip it back a few hours in my day. My baby monitor started going off at 4:45 this morning letting me know for some reason it decided it could no longer connect to the main unit, even though we've been connected to the main unit, and we were not in a new situation that would have made sense that it wasn't going to connect. I was in our bedroom like I am every single night. It was sitting in the exact same place on the side table that it does every single night. But it didn't want to connect, so I got up out of bed and I went sat on the stairs turned it on and off a couple of times and it connected. I considered staying up because it was already 5 a.m. at that point, and going back to bed after waking up at 5 a.m. really makes for a chaotic morning for me for some reason. Then I went back to bed, knowing my morning would likely be chaotic because of my decision. That was future Grace's problem.
RB got up and so did I. Beau kept sleeping, which is abnormal for him. He struggles with insomnia, and normally he's been up by the time I get up. We'll learn more about the reason for the extra snoozing later.
RB woke up like a fucking freight train. He gave me some immediate feedback as to the state of his hunger. I have learned to wake him up bottle in hand and to get that damn thing in his mouth as quickly as possible. He can hold his own bottle so all I need to do is get him on the changing table and it's smooth sailing from there. I mean, if smooth sailing was like trying to feed a wily alligator who did not want you to fuck with them, twisting and turning to bluff your advances. Every morning it's the same thing. We have a tussle, I get him changed, we go downstairs, and it's like it never happened. He's a hoot.
I get RB changed and we go downstairs. RB and I needed to take the dogs out.
Oh, right, we got another weim! The full story is for another time. Her current name is Finley, though we'd like to change it to Hela (hell-a). Her owner was in a situation where she was unable to keep her and Finley needed a home, and we have a home that needed another weim. So, here we are, a family of five. She's been here all of 36 hours so she is still very new to us, and we are to her. She is sweet as all get out. But she's nervous and chaotic. (Who isn't, though?)
RB had a grip on his bottle, I had a grip on him on my hip, and we wrestled these dogs outside. The sprinklers were going, which is something that I learned this morning neither of these dogs cares for. I knew Hap didn't. Now I know Finley doesn't. There are two dogs that live next door, and one is a German Shepherd that patrols our shared fence line all day. She is a very sweet girl, a runner, and a barker. Finley heard this German Shepherd barking and wanted to get in on the fun! We have a lanai (Florida term, I believe) which is basically a screened-in porch. Our entire back patio and pool are in the lanai. To get the the backyard, and to the shared fence line, one must walk out through the screen door. But we couldn't go through the damn screen door because the dreaded sprinklers were going. So, while I am trying to wrestle Hap's big ass out the door with RB being, uh, absolutely no help at all, Finley decides she will have herself a sprint around the pool and get into the barking adventure. Unfortunately for Finley, she's not yet familiar with the back porch layout just yet, and the next thing I know, I hear 75lbs of dog splash into the pool. RB and I turn around and there she is, in the pool. I guess I should also say it's now approximately 7:25 in the morning.
She'd swam herself over to the edge of the pool but not to the stairs, so she couldn't quite pull herself out. I looked at her. She looked at me. I looked at RB. He looked at me. He looked at her. She looked at him. We have a tanning chair right next to where I was standing. I laid RB down and very sternly told him to not move. He seems to know my tone and when I mean business. I laid him down and then proceeded to walk the two feet over to her, and pulled her big ass out of the pool. I picked RB up and had to take a deep breath. God love 'em, these little creatures make my heart so full, but also they are going to be the cause of my soon-to-come gray hairs. The entire transaction from slip to rescue took about 30 seconds. Don't forget no dog has peed yet.
I finally get both her and Hap out into the yard, past the scary sprinklers, and everyone pees. It's not everything I was looking for but I thought, "shit, I'll take it." I collect everyone and go back inside. It's at this point I notice Beau is in the guest bathroom, and at the moment I notice this, I see I got a text from him. That text reads "I think I have food poisoning. I'm going to sit in the shower for a while."
Now, I have never been a benevolent ruler of the universe and likely never will be, but what kind of sick joke is that? We just recovered from a bout with food poisoning that literally changed us as people. Now he is sick AGAIN? Fucking unfathomable. When we got sick earlier this summer, I literally sat in the hottest shower I have ever taken for two hours. I am not exaggerating. I begged the earth for sweet release. It laughed and did nothing to help me. I imagine Beau went through that same experience once again this morning.
I'm processing the news laid upon me and at the same time trying to dry off a very excited dog who is absolutely soaked to the fucking bone after her morning dip. RB laid next to me still working on his bottle. I took one look at him and then I saw that the nipple on his bottle didn't attach correctly (or more that I didn't attach it correctly) so it was dripping everywhere. He was soaked. I finished drying Finley to the best of my abilities and took to stripping pajamas off of a very confused baby. At this point, It's 7:35 a.m.
Everyone was dried and calm, and I needed to get dressed. I had a few calls I had to take for work this morning starting at 8, so I walk my happy ass into my bathroom where I have put a Pack and Play (aka a baby jail) and I lay RB in it with a fixed bottle. I then stare at myself in the mirror and ask if this is how the rest of the day will go, or is this a cosmic joke? I decided on the latter, laughed, and got dressed.
Beau went to lay back down, and I took RB to school. While I was gone, Finley went to the bathroom upstairs. I was assaulted by the smell. She is a dinosaur when it comes to this particular action. Do you remember that scene in Jurassic Park where Ellie approaches a 6-foot-tall pile of dino dung? Well, I have now been there.
I feel the need to say that I don't fault Finley for the craziness. She's feeling lost and nervous. I will be consistent and I will love her through figuring this out. Everything is cleaned up now, candles are lit, and I am getting this all out of my brain so I can put it behind me and focus on the rest of my day.
As all of this was happening, the song "You're Gonna Miss This" by Trace Adkins popped into my head. It was a hard morning, but even at the lowest points, I am grateful for the life I have and the family we've built. One day I'll look back on this time period and long to be here. While I'm here, I'll do my best to enjoy it, shit and all.
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