29
Aug
A Gang of Dick Tracy Villains
Topic: Family and Friends, Kai and Eidan
Last week, my family came to resemble a gang of Dick Tracey villains: we had Scrape Face (when he was finally almost over his respitory infection, Kai fell flat on his face in the driveway), Blister Butt (in just one night, Eidan developed a bad case of diaper rash), Zombie Mama (since I was sick all week, Maria bore the brunt of the night shift, and Eidan didn’t let her sleep much), and me, Mr. Zonked (I had a nasty flu that had me out of commission for most of the week). On top of all that, Maria’s car was rear-ended while she was driving Kai to school, so she had to deal with the insurance company, body shop, etc.
Neither Maria nor I was thinking very clearly for most of the week, which lead to some amusing snafus. To illustrate an example, I will present you with some facts, and then I’ll tell you how we acted on them:
1. Maria’s car is an automatic, mine is a stick-shift. Maria does not know how to drive my car.
2. On Friday afternoon, Maria’s car had to go to the body shop.
3. At the same time, Kai had to go to his karate class.
4. Afterwards we were having dinner at a friend’s house, and Maria was planning to pick up some beer to bring over.
Maria had a rough day, and watching Kai do his karate lesson was much easier than dealing with the guys at the body shop and fetching beer, so I offered to take care of those errands for her. So she happily drove off with Kai to his karate class, in her car, while I loaded Eidan in my car for a trip to the body shop. As I was putting the key in the ignition, the neurons in my brain stopped misfiring for a moment, and it dawned on me that there was a problem with this plan. I called the karate school and got Maria on the phone: “there’s a flaw in our plan,” I said. “Oh, what is it?,” she said sleepily. … We made quite a pair that day.
When Kai was born in California, four and half years ago, Maria’s folks were living with us. The 5 of us living for two years in a 790 sq. ft. house that was under construction was more challenging than you can imagine (we put an addition on the house that connected at the kitchen), but it had one saving grace: a parent-to-child ratio of 4:1 is really quite good. Now we’re in Philly and Maria’s folks are in Denver, so the parent-to-child ratio is now 2:2, which presents much more of a challenge. But like all parents, we’ll muddle through. As I keep saying, I don’t know how single parents do it.
Eidan is now just over 3 weeks old, and he doesn’t look like he did a week ago. Specifically, he’s fat now. He continues to guzzle milk at an astounding rate. Here’s a picture so you can see (the 2nd picture is Eidan with Maria at our friend’s house Friday night - we managed to get there in the end).
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