Heather “ordered” me to stay home for ten days after Halia’s birth in order to let my body get a good start on getting back to non-pregnancy health. Since she was born on the 11th, that means I’m supposed to rest until the end of tomorrow — no running around, no heavy lifting.
I’ve been lucky to be getting a lot of rest; I’m actually getting a lot of sleep, thanks to my mom doing all the cooking and cleaning and lot of the Jade supervision. Michael’s been getting very little sleep because Jade has been sleeping very poorly at night, and he’s up with her. It’s a rather strange situation for the mom of a newborn to be getting more sleep than the dad.
Yesterday I realized that I still have dental coverage from work until the end of this month, so I called the dentist’s office to see if they could squeeze me in for a cleaning. They called back fairly early this morning (while I was in bed) and said there was a space for me at 1:00. Michael told me late this morning, around 11:00, after he got up from trying to catch up on some sleep.
He broke out the baby carseat and I got busy getting ready to go. My mom said she wanted to go downtown with me and have a look at the shops. She’s been working like a slave for us and Michael had asked me the other day what we could do to thank her. I figured this was one little thing we could do. It shouldn’t be a big deal to leave Jade home with Michael, since it was her nap time.
Halia had a good long feed and started falling asleep — perfect! My mom fed Jade her lunch — great! I got Halia all fitted into the carseat, adjusting the straps back to newborn size and found a few blankets so she would stay warm.
And then things started falling apart.
I carried Jade downstairs to be with Michael (I’ve been avoiding lifting her, but I could tell she was starting to melt down a bit) and then I went into the bathroom to wash my glasses. Jade followed me in and decided it was time to be on the toilet and have a story read to her. Since I had to go, I called Michael came in to supervise. Just as a new potential client called. (He wasn’t supposed to get that call for another half hour.) I could hear Jade’s crying and whining over the baby monitor, with Michael gamely trying to talk business.
I lugged the sleeping Halia in her carseat into the dental office, mom helping me with the doors. One of the receptionists was sitting in a seat in the waiting area, talking to a patient. She was surprised to see me.
Since I hadn’t phoned back to confirm (Michael had told them I was in bed when they called) they had filled the 1:00 appointment with someone else.
So let’s see… to summarize today’s achievements, I carried heavy objects, left the house, and left Michael with a disintegrating toddler while on a business call. I just wanted to get my darned teeth cleaned, but maybe I should have tried driving on the wrong side of the road while I was at it. Argh.
