Papa's "Day Off"

Papa had the day off work today in recognition of Martin Luther King's birthday.  As usual, Erin had to work, and Claire spent most of the day with Grammie.  I thought that my day off alone would result in an entirely relaxing period of time in which I could catch up on my college football recruiting news, see a movie, or finish up a good book on theology.

Boy, was I wrong!!  I really only had one thing to do today: grocery shopping for the week.  "That should be easy," I thought.  "Give me fifteen minutes and I'll be well on the way to finishing my book."

Well, what in the heck is wrong with e-mealz.com grocery lists?!  I was supposed to pick up a 32 oz. bag of corn meal and 2 pounds of cube steak.  Unforunately, Kroger didn't carry either one of them in those denominations.  I was also supposed to pick up 8 oz. of shredded cheddar cheese.  Was that supposed to be regularly shredded or finely shredded cheese?  Was that supposed to be sharp chedder or mild cheddar?  Unfortunately, the darn list gave no further details.  So, I finally left Kroger about 3 hours after I had entered.  Yeah, my loyal reader, you read that right.  3 hours!

Lo and behold, it was time to pick up Claire at Grammie's house.  "That's OK," I thought.  "I may not finish a book or see a movie, but I can have fun with my sweet daughter for the rest of the day."  I guess I'm just not too familiar with what Erin goes through every day while I'm at work.

After getting home with Claire, I realized that a couple loads of laundry needed to be done.   No problem, right?  Well, the laundry part went OK, but when I set sweet, little Claire down on the floor of the laundry room to watch me work, she quickly grabbed the mousetrap that I had forgotton was down there.  For some miraculous reason, it didn't go off in her hand, but I think I tore an ACL lunging to get it out of her hand.  And, yes, it went off in MY hand and only crushed 3 out of 5 of my fingers.  Not a bad percentage, I say.

While the laundry was going, I thought Claire and I would relax a little bit and watch Pixar's Ratatouille.  I was sadly too engrossed in the movie to notice that Claire had eaten about a quarter page of a lightbulb brochure that we had sitting on the end table.  A sweep of the mouth with my finger to extricate any non-swallowed paper resulted in a swift, painful bite from my precious daughter.  Those two lower teeth are like razors!!

Time apparently flies when you are not having fun, too, I learned, because now it was time to make dinner.  Well, maybe moms are good at preparing food with an 8 month old grasping onto their pantlegs or preparing a sauce with one hand, but it's much more of a challenge for dads like me.  Of course, I didn't have much choice in the matter because any time more that 6 inches of space opened up between us, Claire cried and shrieked like something from the deepest pit of hell.  Despite such shrieks, I was able to successfully shake her off a couple of times and focus 100% of my attention on my culinary objective....that is until I heard the unmistakable sound of my daughter gagging on something she picked up from the kitchen floor.  After an almost tear-filled jaunt to the other side of the room and a sprained ACL on the other knee, I was able to reach Claire and slap her on the back a few times to stop the gagging.  "Where the heck is Erin?!" I thought.  "She should be home by now."  I think I texted her, "I need you..." as I caught a whiff of something sickly sweet burning on the stove.

When Erin finally made it home, I was already on my second rum and Coke.  The admittedly cliche lesson is this, my fellow new Dads: When your wife isn't at work and spends the whole day at home with your new child, she most certainly does NOT have the "day off!"  Let us more fully appreciate our wives for the saints that they are.  Motherhood is as much a gift to fathers as it is to children.  Erin and Claire, my sweet girls.  I love you both with all of my heart. Hopefully, I don't have any Mondays off in the near future!!

-- Mike