A Series of Snapshots from Sunday or Margaret Scoffs at Daddy

I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille

The Morning

Sundays are supposed to be lazy days and even Sarah seized the moment this morning and delegated to me so she could get a well earned extra hour of rest.

Since trying to stabilize Margaret's sleeping and feeding, she has surprised us several times by seemingly randomly altering her sleep / feed schedule. This involves waking up and being absolutely inconsolable and / or wanting to feed, and I think that Sarah has been bearing the brunt of the impact.

Couple with this the fact that we have decided to not feed Margaret if she has fed within the past two hours. While this has positive long term implications, it makes it difficult for whoever has to manage her if Margaret wakes up screaming within thirty minutes of going down. If that happens, quite often, she will simply scream for forty five minutes no matter what the adults do.

There was some of this at play this morning starting probably around 8:00 am with me noticing in my half slumber that Sarah was fleeing the bedroom multiple times with a screaming Margaret much more frequently than we are used to.

Sometimes, I swear she's going to start whistling

Finally, at around 11:00 or so, when Margaret began to wake again, a very exhausted Sarah turned over and asked me to feed her a bottle.

Woah. "My first SECOND bottle of the day," I thought to myself. It felt like I had graduated to Yellow belt or something.

After bumbling around to get set up - I never have to feed Margaret during the day - Margaret absolutely SUCKED down the five ounces within thirty minutes and, oddly for Margaret at 11:30 AM, fell almost immediately asleep.

I'm thinking Laura Ashley

This was when the day started feeling like a normal Sunday.

The Afternoon

Quite proud of myself, I made my lunch and hung out until Sarah awoke a bit better rested at around 12:45. The rest of the "morning" was spent cleaning up the house from last night's guests and motivating for the day.

We left the house at around 3:00 pm with a mission.

On Friday, Sarah had gone to school and discovered that each of her twenty two students had gotten her a baby gift. From onesies to chocolates, they poured out their personalities and hearts into wonderful gifts.

After opening all the presents, we quickly came to the realization that we didn't have enough cards to send thank you notes to everyone. Our mission of the day was to try to find stationery.

Tummy Time!

So it was off to Causeway Bay with Margaret strapped to my chest. It seemed that every last person in Hong Kong was at Time's Square today. Compounded by the Holiday season, the shops were absolutely packed, but Sarah, true to her super-human ways, found exactly the stationery she was looking for.

Woohoo! Mission one accomplished. Our only other task was to dash across the street to buy Margaret her very own matching (to ours) passport case then go home. With the thronging crowds rushing past, we could see no other obstacles to home.

Scooching along

It was on the escalator that I began to feel wet through the front of my jeans.

At first, I looked up and around to make sure nobody had spilled on me. It didn't seem possible. Then it dawned on me. I looked straight down and felt Margaret's right leg.

Yep.

"Um, SAM. Margaret is peeing on me."

Sarah's reaction was swift and decisive. Grabbing an extra burp cloth out of the diaper bag, she quickly tried to put it between me and Margaret.

But it was too late.

In the nursing/changing room at Times Square

Luckily, Times Square is the best place in Hong Kong for something like this to happen as they are one of the few malls with a nursing / changing room (sort of like having a heart attack at the cardiologist). On the ninth floor. We were at ground level.

So it was up the elevators.

Luckily, we had a change of clothes for Margaret. I was not so lucky.

Another couple with an older child looked at us, asked what happened, then asked with a smile, "First child?"

Talk about insult to injury.

Margaret's gift to Daddy

Turns out, I was the last one to change her. Now, typically, I feel like I am vigilant about fringe management. My contention is that being in the Baby Bjorn must have somehow shifted the diaper. Yeah.

"...and no, Senator. Beyond that, I have no recollection."

Well, we managed the rest of our errands with spirits only slightly dampened and came home to feed and then finally bathe Margaret.

Aaah, bath time.

We've come a long way with bath time since those early days. Now, baths are quick and efficient and we know what we're doing. First, we wash her hair and face while holding her, then dunk her in the sink to wash her body. We're good at this now.

So we got her all ready, and I'm soaping up her scalp when I suddenly feel a now familiar warmth spreading across my shirt and jeans. Again. I look down.

"For ****'s sake!"

I mean, really?

Usually, we do the first stage of head and face washing with a diaper on. Today, for some reason, SAM handed her to me naked, and I, for some reason, accepted her this way. Perhaps we thought that lightning never strikes the same place twice.

Maybe not lightning, but peeing babies, definitely. I have experience. There should be a new saying. "Babies almost always pee in the same place twice. Ask that John guy with the blog. And not just pee. Poop, too."

Or something like that.

Perhaps this is her way of getting back at us for trying to change her feeding / sleeping schedule?

Now that we've had dinner, spoken with Jack and Roz and are ready to end the day, finally, I'm ready to strip off my soiled clothing, take a shower and hit the sack.

It's been a pisser of a day.