This morning my parents left, meaning that it was time to return to real people land in which Grandma isn't there to offer snuggles for The Boy and moral support for me. And other brands of help for which I am so thankful. My father is also a great person to have around. He's the type that has no problem running out on random errands, but he's also so nice to sit and have a conversation with.
So they're gone for a few hours, and then Musical Daddy turns on the faucet in the bathroom and says "um...we have no water pressure in here." Craaaaaaaaapppp. Sure enough, he went out into the garage and I heard the sound of water spraying on cement. Did I mention, craaaaaappp.
He called his father to ask for help. He found the valve for shutting off the water, and...we wait. His father arrived, assessed the situation, and it was off to Home Depot. I picked up the toys and ran the vacuum in the living room area because those jobs perpetually need to be done, and I need to do a better job of doing them. My friend The Bari arrived around this time, as we had made plans for her to come over just to come over, pretty much.
The gentlemen were gone...and then the HVAC guy came over, because he did have an appointment after all, to discuss the new heating and cooling system that they had devised for us, because we need one. I am intelligent and knowledgeable enough to sit down with the guy for ten minutes while he talks about equipment and leaves the relevant literature until Musical Daddy and his father returned, so rather than reschedule (as he could see that we were in quite a state), I sat down with him and Bari (which isn't a bad girl's name anyway but obviously not her real name) took charge with The Boy.
Another bonus was that Musical Daddy ran into one of the local plumbers while at Home Depot, so he got help within the next hour in repairing the burst pipe.
All of that worked out just fine. We got sandwiches for everyone, and then she and I, and The Boy, had a chance to sit down and just socialize. We caught up a bit on what's going on in each other's lives. I told her about my sisters, and my brother, and explained everything behind the "Please don't burn down my kitchen" song. I asked about the quartet (as I sang with her for close to two years; when life became too complicated for me, they replaced me) and the choruses. She was thrilled about Musical Daddy's current employment situation. She indicated that she'd be available to give me a hand from time to time and even to "house-sit" if we wanted to make the HVAC appointment during a time when The Boy is in the hospital.
Not a bad idea anyway, to have the HVAC work done while The Boy is out of the house. Spares him from being around the extra people and the extra noise.
Musical Daddy finished dealing with the pipe issue. It required some new insulation. I sorted laundry and amused The Boy. And he amused me. He's pretty darned funny. We didn't nap even though it was around his normal nap time, but we did snuggle up and have some crazy baby time, in which he pounces on me repeatedly.
Three other friends came over a little while later and said that they had about an hour to do some housework, so GO TEAM. I spent more time containing and redirecting The Boy than participating in the housework, although I did do some straightening, particularly of The Boy's bookshelf. So much work was done in that time, and we are so thrilled with our friends. Even just to have a few people help every now and then makes a huge difference. In addition to the cleaning, one friend installed some good baby-proofing items that we really should have had before, but especially now that we'll have two little imps in the house, we'll need to have that much more protection.
Babyproofing, as you know and as Musical Daddy has explained on numerous occasions, is not in any way a substitute for adequate supervision. Nor is there any expectation that an intelligent toddler can't foil your efforts in this regard. Babyproofing merely gives you enough time to get to the kid and stop him from doing whatever it was that the babyproofing device was supposed to stop him from doing in the first place.
We spent some time playing in The Boy's room (we'd like to get him acclimated to the room again and sleeping in his bed there; in the hospital, he can still sleep in bed with whomever stays with him that night). We then snuggled up back in our bed. I read him "One Fish Two Fish" and he was asleep right around the part where Ned doesn't like his little bed. I was even able to sneak my way out of the room to prepare dinner. I just heard a peep from him, but I think he has gone back to sleep for now.
The Boy does get enough sleep, and usually his sleeping schedule works just fine for us. These days, while it's Winter Vacation for Musical Daddy (and it would be for me too, if I were actually going back to work) he'll go to sleep around 9:30 or 10:00 and wake up around 8:30 or 9:00 AM. He'll take a nap or two during the day as well. No complaints there. I'm hoping to shift us to maybe a 7:00 AM wakeup time so that during the week, we can have breakfast together. He'll usually sleep longer on the weekends anyway. Furthermore, we'll soon have 8:00 AM mall-walking appointments with Grandpa (Musical Daddy's father; mall-walking isn't really my dad's thing although I bet he'd like it too).
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