Happy Father’s Day

I am so tired, I am blind with sleep.

I think it was T. S. Elliot who wrote about the burnt out stubs of the end of the day. That’s what all of yesterday felt like to me, or maybe that’s what I felt like to me. Completely burnt out. I checked my breast feeding log. Between midnight and 5:30 AM I nursed Sam four times. Cassie came into the room three times during that period, crying about monsters under the bed. So I got no sleep and felt completely fried by the time 8 AM rolled around. I was up a lot last night too, so today won’t be much better.

I pretty much stayed fried all day long. Michael left the house at 7 AM to go to a karate review for black belt testing. He didn’t have to go, but he decided he wanted to, and after that he planned to hit the hardware store. He’s in the middle of ripping out our downstairs toilet so he can re-tile the floor. Apparently the plumber installed the toilet incorrectly so now Michael has to chisel and hammer out a good bit of concrete to fix the problem. Joy.

Between the karate review and Michael’s trip to the hardware store, I ended up spending the day alone with Cassie and Sam until 1 PM. This was my first time on my own with both kids. I’d love to say it went smoothly, but I could not seem to get my act together to save my life. I had wanted to finish up my housecleaning chores early so I could get Cassie outside to play. No such luck. Every time I turned around, I was back in the glider nursing Sam. She must be going through a growth spurt. Cassie played pretty well on her own, but started driving me nuts asking if she could put a blanket over Sam. “It’s 90 degrees outside, honey. Sam doesn’t need a blanket.” Then it was the constant requests for milk, of which we had almost none, and the requests of television, which I wasn’t going to allow. Somewhere in between all the nursing and dealing with requests, I got the housecleaning done. But even though I was up at 5:30 AM to get a jump on the chores, the cleaning still wasn’t done until 12:30 PM. Where the hell did all that time go?

From 5:30 AM until 12:30 PM is seven hours. Figure I spent about forty minutes in the chair each time I nursed, and I nursed three times between 5:30 AM and noon. There’s two hours for you right there. Half an hour went to breakfast. That still leaves me with four and half hours. It should have taken no more than an hour to do the basic chores, and then another half hour to do some detailed cleaning in the bathrooms. That would have left me with three free hours, which I had planned to spend playing with Cassie and Sam in the backyard. But that never happened. All I can recall is an endless session of trying to clean house. I feel like one of those alien abductees thinking about all that time, because I have no idea what happened to it.

But none of this has anything to do with Father’s Day, which is today. Michael told me he planned to spend the entire day with Cassie and Sam, because they’re the reason he’s a father. He also said something about wanting to go on a picnic with the whole family. We’ll have to see if either of those things happen, because I know he’s still anxious to tear up the concrete in our downstairs bath. I’ve got a present for him, something I know he wants, and if I’m lucky, I still know where I hid it. I’m up early enough I ought to be able to make him breakfast, although he’s not getting it in bed. I just can’t pull that miracle out of my behind. The best I may be able to do is convince Cassie that she does not need to wake up her father any earlier than 8 AM, and then try my best not to resent Michael for getting to sleep in so late. Personally, I can’t recall the last time I slept in until eight. I was up at 5:30 AM even on Mother’s Day.

So you can see, we don’t have much planned for Father’s Day this year, but we’ll do the best we can. I figure I should get bonus points just for remembering anyway. After all, sixteen days ago, I did tear the hell out of my vagina pushing one of his kids out into the world.

That’s got to count for something, right?