Baby Business

Everybody needs a job. I've gone back to work, Drake went back to work long ago, even Petey has a job ("Cleanup, aisle 3, kitchen spill"). And then there's the baby.

We let her freeload for a while. You know, just to get her feet wet and figure out this world outside the womb. But hey, she's 5 months old now -- you don't get a free ride forever, kid. We had to use tough love. Now, every day, we send her to The Office.

Oh, she was resistant at first. I mean, she's had it pretty good -- gets carried wherever she wants to go, fed on demand, washed without lifting a finger. It was a sweet ride. But once she tried The Office she was hooked.

It's all Baby Business, all the time.

Remi Finds Her Feet

It's hard to believe she's 5 months old already, and discovering her lower extremities! Yay for Remi!

Off to Work I Go

Drake is not happy about me going back to work. For that matter, neither is Remi. And can you blame her? I'm most of what her short little life has been about. Until now.

So off I go at 11 pm, confident that Drake and Remi will sort things out. And then 9 hours later in I walk, "Hello! How're things!"

"There's no time to chat," Drake replies urgently. "Take the baby."

The room is a disaster. Diapers and changing pads strewn about the floor, comforter and sheets in a tangled mess. A near empty bottle peeks out from beneath a pillow, and Drake's hair stands out from her head on all sides. My mouth falls open, Drake is at wits' end, and the baby, well... she has no pants, and a big grin on her face.

It would appear that Drake was more traumatized by my absence than Remi was.

Of course, I eventually got the whole story. How Remi had no patience for the time it took to heat a bottle. How she took one look at the bottle and let out a scream of refusal. How she was still hungry after the first bottle, so Drake quickly put together a 2nd one out of the fridge, didn't even take the time to heat it, but apparently didn't screw the lid on all the way, either, thereby causing cold milk to pour all over the Poobah. So then she had a cold, wet, hungry, screaming baby who needed an outfit change.

And of course there's a part of me that thinks the whole thing is pretty funny. Though I know it wasn't at all funny at 2 am.

P.S. There is no way I am allowed to publish a picture of Drake and her hair, so this post shall remain photo-less.

Baby's 1st Christmas

It's Christmas morning. Baby's 1st Christmas. The cameras are at the ready, the Flip recorder is rolling. And The Poobah... slept.

And slept.

And slept.

We opened the gifts without her. Ostensibly because Emlyn is only 4 and couldn't wait. But at least in part, too, because we are practical adults who realize that it's much easier to get down to business when there's not a baby in your lap. A baby who, let's face it, doesn't much care at this age about the whole celebration.

So we had our coffee in peace, and oohed and ahed over Remi's gifts on her behalf. And later, we took her out to see Christmas lights, which were, after all, far more her speed. She thought they were pretty fascinating. She also thought Emlyn was pretty fascinating: someone closer to her size, who acted silly and did a chicken dance and fell to the floor repeatedly. Behaviour worthy of quite a few giggles -- the sight and sound of which was probably the best gift of all.