Here is Phoebe towards the end of tummy time - it is hard work for the baby!
Around 9:30 we left to go to a class at Parents Place. Now I am going to take a little break from talking about Phoebe to talk about playing by the rules ...
When I was a youngster, my parents taught me to play by the rules. Or, I guess to be precise, they taught me that you can't beat up little boys at preschool when they make you follow the rules for Chutes and Ladders. I may have also announced in preschool that rules are "what you can't do when mom is home" so maybe I didn't completely absorb the lesson, but still, I have a general sense that things go better when we just all do what we're supposed to. This is a lesson that should perhaps be taught at the California DMV along with things like "use your turn signal" - something else that Californians apparently never learned.
Today, on the way to Parents Place we hit a little road construction. There were no fewer than FOUR signs alerting drivers to the fact that the left lane was ending so they should merge right. When I saw the first sign, I waited for an opening and merged just as I got to the second sign. If all of my fellow drivers had done this, traffic may have slowed a bit, but we would have all kept moving. Instead, there was a major cluster-f*ck on the highway. Why? Because half the people on the road consider themselves too important to follow the rules. There were actually people who swerved out of the right lane into the left lane so they could speed down the side of the highway to try to gain a couple of car lengths. There were also a bunch of jerks who sped up the exit ramp on the far right, swerving back into the right lane at the last minute.
This still wouldn't have been a disaster, but if half of Californians feel entitled to break the rules, the other half are so used to being terrorized by the first half that they end up making the problem worse! Half the people in the right lane would get to the front of the pack, see all the cars speeding up the left lane and just sit there while they let 5-10 people from the left lane in. I am sure that it was all they could do not to get out of their minivans and say "hey, while you're driving like a jerk and cutting me off, why don't you help yourself to my lunch money".
Anyway, while a situation like this would normally rankle me a bit, with a crying baby in the car I found it even more intolerable than usual. Typically, I will let anyone with a turn signal merge over after the first couple of signs but when it gets to the actual lane closing, I ride the bumper of the car in front of me preferring an accident to letting in the self-entitled jerks that sped up the closing lane. With the baby in the car, I figured I needed to drive a bit more cautiously though and didn't even flip off the jackwagon in a pick up that cut in front of me even after I had already let another car in. He had a decal Calvin peeing on something in his back windshield, so I figured his life was tragic enough already. That's probably why he couldn't merge earlier.
Anyway, all of that to say we were late for our class because a stretch of highway that should have taken 2 minutes (or maybe 5-10 with construction) took over 20 minutes to get through. Grrrr.
Once we got to Parents Place, the class was good, and we met another baby that was born the same day as Phoebe - in the same hospital too!
When we got back from Parent's Place, all three of us went to Chipotle for lunch. Today a portion of the proceeds were going to the athletic department at my school, so we figured we HAD to eat burritos. For the children. We were only thinking of the children.
When we got home, Phoebe and I hung out while Jeremy took a nap - he has been feeling a little under the weather. Now that Phoebe is in daycare it looks like Jeremy and I are going to end up getting every icky kiddie illness out there. I've started drinking Emergen-C every day, I figure my immune system needs all the help it can get!
Constant illness aside, we do feel like we're getting a little better at figuring out life as parents. We even managed to make chicken and sweet potato curry for dinner tonight which is officially the most involved dish that has been cooked in this house since Phoebe was born. Of course, it did take three days to get it done. I grocery shopped on Sunday, Jeremy chopped everything on Monday, and we finally got it cooked tonight.
Well, I have to run because Phoebe just woke up crying which she almost never does after Jeremy gets her down for the night. I'll leave you with a cute picture of Phoebe and her pre-bedtime daddy time tonight
No comments:
Post a Comment