the husband

Saturday was Amos’ first night in his “big boy bed,” and it went great. He snuggled right up underneath his new Spiderman blanket and was asleep in seconds. And he slept in his own bed until 5:45 am. This is a vast departure from every other night in months and months, when he insisted that we lie next to him on the floor for 45 minutes until he fell asleep (this has proven to be a tedious and uncomfortable habit, and I’m ready to move on). There were always unending requests for snacks and water, and pleading for a story or to go watch Barney. So Saturday was magic. I was delighted and immediately thought, “Fantastic! I cannot wait to go trumpet this success on my blog, for all the other mommies to see!” But then I decided it could be a fluke and I should wait a day or two to see how it all shook out.

It was a good thing I waited. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights were our typical disaster, with at least half an hour of whining, begging and sneaking out of the bed. And each night he was awake and clamoring to snuggle with us by 2 a.m. In fact, it’s getting worse, and last night he was in the bed with me by midnight.

But that worked to our advantage last night, because my husband went out on the town and came home smelling like smoke and bar. He also brought a woman home with him, which sounds super racy and exciting except it was an old buddy who sacked out in the guest room. Rodney’s sleeping options included a) getting maced in the face if he tried to get in my bed, or b) sleeping outside, on the floor, on the couch, in the car, anywhere I couldn’t smell him. When Amos and I woke up this morning we found dad rolled up in the Spiderman blanket on the big boy bed, sound asleep. So the new bed definitely has its perks.

I’m sure a lot of you have seen this already. It’s an article in New York magazine about how having children doesn’t make us happier, and in fact, parents report being less happy than people who choose to skip out on that whole breeding scene. This story seems to be getting a lot of press, as have other stories like it. Sociologists found this lack of glee among parents to be true pretty much across the board, except, of course, in Scandinavian countries where new moms get a year of paid maternity leave, plus subsidized childcare and free health care. Call me a commie, I think that sounds great. But for the rest of us, parenting is a miserable lot, they said. I can’t say I agree about the misery, but I have definitely been surprised by how hard parenting is because there’s just so much to do all the time, especially with this pesky day job they expect me to show up to Monday through Friday when I should be home washing clothes, reading Richard Scarry books and picking bubble wands up out of the grass. I get tired and grumpy and mad that my house is so dirty. So yeah, I’m not always in a great mood.

There are all kinds of theories getting batted around to why this is the case. Some say we’re trying to be superheroes, holding down jobs and trying to be the best parents ever and generally wearing ourselves out.  Another theory is that we all have unrealistic expectations of happiness, and that maybe we shouldn’t expect to walk around all aglow 24/7, tickling our babies’ tummies and giggling. I think that’s more like it.

I also think that this lack of bliss for parents of young and teenage kids (apparently there’s a bubble of happiness during the elementary years) is just a temporary state that can be chalked up to exhaustion and stress. The key point that’s sort of buried in the story is that if sociologists check back in later, once the teething has stopped or the teenage hormones have calmed, they’ll most likely find those parents are plenty happy, very fulfilled and pleased as punch about their life choices. A no regrets sort of scenario. So hang in there.

Rodney set off for his man-cation this morning and has gotten off to a terrible start. I suppose anytime you have to be at the airport by 4 a.m. it’s going to be rough, but by the time Rodney got to Seattle he was sick. Really sick, with a fever and everything. I summoned my magical mommy powers and made him a doctor’s appointment, ordered him to bed and tried to force fluids, all from a distance of about 1,800 miles. Then I got a sad text from him, a photo of Rodney’s hand holding a picture of Amos. I know how he feels. It’s expected for people to want their mamas when they’re sick, but when I’ve felt under the weather on trips away from home I just want my baby. I guess it’s a function of wanting to be safe at home and to know your family is safe. Poor Rodney.

Amos will probably miss his daddy a lot this week too, especially since Rodney has been spoiling him ridiculously for weeks. I came home from my work trip to Guatemala this weekend to find that my side of the bed has been claimed by Amos. Those two have been snuggling up together every night, and Rodney has even been going to bed at 8:30 so as not to upset the little prince by asking him to put himself to sleep. There was no room for me, so I had to fend for myself in the guest room. (I’m not really complaining, though. A bed to myself!)  The boys have gorged themselves on cheeseburgers and nearly bankrupted us paying for camel rides and train rides at the zoo. They’ve sat around the house in their skivvies, eating Cheetos and watching Barney marathons.

I totally get this nearly desperate frenzy to spoil and smother and smooch as much as possible before boarding the plane. I do it too, and am frankly surprised Amos isn’t tired of the excessive camel rides and cheeseburger outings by now. But after back-to-back work trips to distant countries, I can say for certain that the separation is definitely hardest on the parents. I think Rodney figured out the same thing today right before he sent me that sad, sad picture.

It could not have been more obvious what Rodney wanted for Father’s Day this year. The poor man needs a break.

I could tell he was about to crack when I got home from a week-long business trip last month, during which he hosted my dad and his wife and took care of Amos by himself, all the while wrapping up one master’s-level night class and starting a new one. For some reason he chose that same week to install new lighting fixtures in the kitchen and on the deck, which are great but no one likes an overachiever. And the very next weekend my mom and her husband came to town. Rodney genuinely likes the whole in-law set, but I think we can all agree that a double header is a lot to take on. And in another week I’m off on another business trip, leaving Rodney to keep the homefires burning yet again.

So I’m sending him away to visit his friend Patrick in Seattle. Patrick is a banjo-playing Irishman who works in a lab identifying hard-to-place parasites. It’s great fun listening to him and his coworkers talk about tapeworms and infested corpses and such. Rodney and Patrick will likely spend their week together eating yummy Cuban sandwiches from the restaurant down the street, drinking good coffee and staying out past their regular bedtimes. On his last trip to Seattle, one of Patrick’s friends outfitted Rodney with a genuine blowdart gun from Indonesia or somewhere. So maybe they’ll go out for target practice. I hope they gets smelly and drinks lots of beer and listen to all the jam band music I’ve tried to ban in my house.

I couldn’t wait so I gave him the plane ticket yesterday. He was totally surprised and so excited that he didn’t even seem to care that his super-saver flight leaves at 5:45 a.m.

Last night I laughed so hard I got a cramp that wouldn’t go away.

At my house we love The Office and 30 Rock, so we were not reticent at all about shipping Amos up to his grandparents’ house in Conway last night for a date night to see Date Night. The two best things to report about it were (a) that we laughed so hard that it caused me physical discomfort, but (b) I did not wet my pants at all. The pelvic floor muscles seem to have revived themselves, only two years after that whole labor thing did a number on them. Kegels, ladies. The time is always right for kegels. How about right now?

I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone (is that even possible? It was really, really funny). But there’s a scene involving a boat that could have been shot on a Gelder family lakeside vacation. My dad, aka Grandbob, is very proud of his boat, and rightfully so. It’s a fine and handsome vessel, but speed is not its greatest virtue. Grandbob doesn’t know this, however, and he’ll caution us all to hold on tight as we churn through the water at paddleboat speed. The last time we rode with him, he sensed our faithlessness. “You don’t think this thing will do 40, do you?” he said as people in canoes blew by us effortlessly. Earlier in the day Rodney and I had taken the boat out ourselves, but returned to the dock in humiliation after a pair of blue-haired ladies in a speedboat nearly capsized us in their wake.

Rodney and I felt a true kinship with Date Night characters Phil and Claire Foster, who sort of sometimes want to be fun and racy but just aren’t. They’re tired, instead. Slow and boring and predictable, but also comfortable and even happy when they have the energy and time to stop and think about it. They’re puttering around on the slow boat, and it’s just fine.

Just home from a surprisingly fabulous jaunt to Memphis, where we rode trolleys, watched horses and carriages trot by (but didn’t ride for fear Amos would leap out), visited the original Peabody ducks, rode up and down the exterior glass elevators in our hotel, ate barbecue and saw panda bears at the zoo. Memphis never did much for me before. Like that time I took some friends from Pennsylvania there, and we saw a dude get beat down with a tire iron on the sidewalk? That wasn’t fun. Kind of embarrassing, actually. Welcome to the South!  This time, though, no hijinks.

Pulling out of town, the excitement builds....

memphis fire museum, yes!

watching cable back at the hotel

barbecue in Germantown

Rodney ordered the ribs

check out the panda munching bamboo in the background

Our trip was made possible by our unsuspecting neighbor, who Rodney ambushed Tuesday morning around 7 a.m. as he wheeled his garbage to the street. Sucker! It’s especially nice considering this is the same neighbor whose truck and carport I accidentally spray-painted with stain when we were putting up the new fence.

We loved that the Memphis Fire Museum has a fire truck out front to play on, so cheapskates like us can get away with not paying admission. We loved that the bar on Beale Street had a high chair. We loved that the horse carriages are lit up with twinkle lights at night so we could watch them from the hotel room. My only real complaint is the bonobos at the zoo. They are the filthiest creatures I’ve ever seen, perverted, nasty little things with no shame at all. The polar bears made up for it, though. Next spring break, we might even go to Memphis for two nights.

Daddy blogs can be just as good as mommy blogs. Haven’t you heard? I really like this guy, especially the way he’s always trying to give his baby a mustache.

My husband slept in Monday, which means he was still snoozing when the Little Rock School District automated phone alert thing called us at 6 a.m. (He is strange and loves to get up at 5 usually. I wish I were that industrious, but it never happens.) “It’s saying school is out. Must be a mistake,” he said, but he got up to check the news just in case. I opened the blinds and was floored. It’s three days later and I’m still confused about how no one noticed Little Rock was about to get it’s first real snowfall in years.

Monday was okay, we did lots of coloring and playing follow the leader. Tuesday got a little hairy with some cabin fever setting in, and I had to load Amos into the backpack carrier and head up the hill to Walgreens for supplies. Really we didn’t need anything except fresh air. We counted six snowmen along the way, and saw one snowplow in action, plus three of those little bobcat snow movers. Richard Scarry come to life! Amos is terrible at sitting still in his stroller, but he’s a great sport about being toted papoose-style on my back in the snow and ice. Snow=magic?

Wednesday was great, the best kind of snow day because the roads were clear. We headed to the Jump Zone in NLR to get out some energy. Amos loves it there. I love it more. I like that Amos is small enough that he needs a hand and therefore I have an excuse to climb in and go for it. Rodney gives it his best too, although the ladder up to the boat slide was a bit tight and he had to retreat.

So we’re coming off our 3-day snow break on a high and waiting to see what tonight brings. If anybody has any fabulous ideas for ways to pass the time should snowpocalypse return, please send them along.