Can you believe it? Your mom actually trusted me. Alone. With you. For a whole day. She had stuff to do. So Daddy stepped-up. And you know what? Best day ever.
We had a pretty fantastic day. We started out on the right foot by sucking all the snot out of you. I am usually the person who has to do that because Mommy thinks you’re going to get hurt or she looks at you and starts empathizing and feeling your pain before even you do — in a way only a mom can. I look at you and think fairly practically, “D*mn! We need to get that snot out before it turns into an ear infection.” And then I get after it. So that’s how we started.
After rocking out some breakfast and keeping you propped for a while, we shifted to the play mat. That’s right. You know EXACTLY what time it was. Tummy time! And you crushed it. I mean, 12-13 minutes. Talk about endurance. You rolled over pretty much right away so I knew you weren’t playing around. But after proving your advanced skills you spent the rest of the time on your neck exercises.
You were pretty wiped after that. So it was time for your first nap. A power nap. 30 minutes. I wish I could look as good as you do going into and out of a nap. I also wish I could be so instantly happy. Do you really wake up feeling this happy? Wow. You just taught me another lesson and changed my life again. Thanks guru!
We moved to the bed. Hung out a bit and rolled through most of The Cat in the Hat. Good times. But you were a little restless. And at this point, Daddy was actually a bit hungry. I figured I’d earned some delivery so went for a breakfast fritata and some breakfast potatoes. There was a point where I felt like you were about to give up on breast milk and upgrade yourself to the hard stuff. When you do, I at least know what you want to get after first. I also know that now I’ll be sharing my breakfast choices with both you and your mom. Awesome.
More play time. More tummy time (round 2.) We got you to 10 minutes but it was a fight. I wonder if I could have kept you on your tummy for even longer. The problem? Every time I turned you over, you looked like this. And frankly, this is the best face the world has ever seen so I allowed myself the guiltiest of pleasures — your dimple and your smile. Once people look at this picture I know I’ll be forgiven for not pushing harder on tummy time at this particular moment.
So the goal was to take you into work at this point. We were hitting the 1pm mark and that was around your sweetspot for travel, or so I was told. So after changing you and feeding you, I got you ready to go. Monkey suit on. Baby Bjorn, harnessed. It was just a matter of getting the two together. I’m going to share a picture of what you looked like before I tried to pull all of this together. Because after … well, let me cover the after, after.
What most people may not realize is that you hate this outfit. As adorable as it looks on you and you look in it, having you in this and then taking you anywhere is brutal. If we’re going to have you wear it we should just carry you. But this and a Bjorn are disastrous. So after fiddling with all of this for 30 minutes and getting you to exhaustion I pulled you out of this outfit, put your old gear on from earlier in the morning — and you faded away like Michael Jordan on the Wizards. Out. So I nixed our trip to the city. And enjoyed you nuzzling in my neck first. Followed by throwing on an episode from one of the last seasons of Breaking Bad. I even captured two critical moments for posterity.
Ahh, Walter White. Few shows are timeless. I fear this show will be completely unappreciated by your generation. It’s ok, you’ll hear me talk about it and love me for it because I’ll never do anything that annoys or exhausts you. (Let me believe that.)
I held you for a bit. I cherished it. But then you were getting hot and Daddy had to actually get some work in. So he placed you in the MamaRoo and got after his job. A good thing in the end.
After this nap I fed you. You were hungry. But you were also twisting and turning your head like mad. To the point where your bib actually flipped around to the back. And what Daddy realized, at that very moment was something incredibly powerful: a bib turned backwards is basically a baby superhero cape! How awesome is that!
After some superhero fun, we worked on your superhero strength. Grip. Right now you have a grip that would make Lincoln Hawk jealous. The problem is that your hands don’t always know what they’re doing — so we’re focused on the difference between voluntary and involuntary. I’m going to have to say that your voluntary grip effort is really on point.
We ended the day back on Daddy’s recliner. I reclined. Rested you on my lap. And we played for a good 20 minutes. Lots of chatter. Lots of talking. Some standing. Some swaying. Some singing. Some sitting. All amazing. All, absolutely, amazing. And here’s the image I will remember most throughout the day.
There’s no denying that this was absolutely one of the best days of my life. I love you munchkin. Today my love for you is all mine. I got to feel what your Mommy feels every single day. And I loved the hell out of it. We’ll have this day, our first of many, for the rest of our lives.
Suneet Bhatt 