A Day in the Life (In Pictures)

356 days old

Opening the Time Capsule

One year ago, I wrote a post containing a list of questions. They were questions I had for the coming year, and I promised that I would return to them one year later. Here we are…

Will we find a new place to call home? Will we be moved in? No and no. Linda and I have looked at only a handful of houses. I’m holding out for a house with woods - or at least a house adjacent to woods – that Violet will be able to turn into her own approximation of the Hundred Acre Wood. We’ve found some houses with nice woods, but the houses aren’t so nice, and vice versa. Last year at this time, finding a house seemed more likely because I wasn’t thinking how the school district would factor into our decision. Our search continues…

What will be the color of our baby's hair? His/her eyes? Her hair started out brown, then it all fell out, and now it’s blond (just like mine was at her age, then it turned brown). I don’t care what color it turns out to be, just as long as it stays in. Her eyes have been blue from the start.

Will our baby be sleeping through the night? Will we? Yes and yes! Although Linda might dispute this point. Violet goes down beautifully at 8 pm each night and usually sleeps until at least 5:30 AM, at which point she wakes up to nurse. She might nurse for half an hour, maybe an hour, and then she typically goes back to bed until 7 or 8. Either way, Linda’s still getting up at 5:30 most days and not really getting back to sleep. From my perspective, however, Violet is sleeping through the night.

Will Linda and I still have the relationship that we do now, or what changes will the baby bring? I look at this question and shake my head, wondering how I could’ve considered the possibility that having a child would not change our relationship. It’s better, it’s worse – it’s different.

Will Linda let me touch her again (y'know, in THAT way), or will she be sleeping with a baseball bat? Most nights, the bat is unnecessary. Baby-induced fatigue and said baby in the crib three feet away are effective anti-aphrodisiacs.

Will I still have a job? I was worried about this last year because my school district, like many others, was waist deep in a budget shortfall, and teacher cuts were a possible piece of the solution. Cuts have occurred the past few years, so I’m near the bottom of the seniority list. I made it through last year, but my job is still not secure. There could be more cuts announced this spring.

What will a day in our life look like? I’ll let you know tomorrow.

Will we be going out one night a week, like I'm planning on now? Nope. At the time I wrote this question, I could not conceive of the preparation that is required for an evening out. The bags, the toys, the driving. Some might say that we’re just being lazy. I could not argue with that.

Thanks to Grandma for the great pic!

355 days old

Dear Santa, We Will Need Cupboard Locks...

The most relaxing and fulfilling twenty minutes I’ve spent in a long time: I sat on the kitchen floor with Violet. We shared a banana while she discovered what cupboards are all about.

354 days old

Violet has Left the Building

Violet visited my class today. My students held a Publishing Party, sharing the stories they'd created over the past few weeks, and during preparations yesterday, one of my students asked if Violet and my wife could come. The request surprised me. I hadn't thought of inviting them, nor had I mentioned the possibilty of them coming to the class, but second graders think in their own, unique ways. I liked the idea, and I knew Linda had off. I told my students I would ask her.

And a little after 9:30 am this morning, as my students gathered on the rug with their handmade books, Linda and Violet came into the classroom. It was odd to teach in front of my wife and daughter. The teaching side of myself  is a side that I rarely present to my family. It was a strange experience, but when the Publishing Party was over and Violet and Linda had left, one of my students said it had been like "having rock stars visit the classroom."

 353 days old

Surprise!

Back in my days as a budding naturalist, when I was going to college and still living at home, I had an image in my mind of someday having an office filled with animal skulls and pelts from critters I’d collected myself from winter, road, or predator kills. I’d use them as reference pieces for the articles and books I’d write and the illustrations I’d create to accompany them. On the way home from class one spring day, I spied a woodchuck on the roadside, legs up but intact. I turned the car around, pulled off near the kill, and got the garbage bag out of my trunk - the garbage bag I’d placed there a few weeks before in anticipation of spring roadkill season. The woodchuck was still pliable. A fresh kill. A small trickle of blood stained the side of its mouth, but otherwise, it was unmarked. It looked serene, as though it were just asleep. Its fur had an oily smoothness, pleasing to the touch. I’d never held a woodchuck before, and for an animal that seemed so common, holding one revealed its simple magnificence. I ran my thumb along its white incisors, felt its rough toepads and splintered nails, and then I placed it in the bottom of the garbage bag and rolled it up into a football-sized bundle. I drove home, a woodchuck in my trunk, and put it in the bottom drawer of our garage freezer. No one ever used that drawer, and I planned to thaw out the woodchuck over the weekend and skin it out, stretching and salting the hide, and I’d bury the body. A few months later, I’d dig it back up to reclaim the bones. But I forgot about the woodchuck, and a month or so later, I got a call at my retail job from my brother. “You’d better not come home,” he said. My stepmother had found the woodchuck. Looking for something in the freezer, she’d apparently noticed the garbage-bagged bundle in the bottom drawer and pulled it out, wondering what it could be that she’d left in there and forgotten about. I imagine her fingers closing around the frozen, furry carcass, her brain trying to interpret the sensory input from her fingers during those few seconds as she pulled them toward the lip of the bag. I imagine how her face changed as the contents came into the light. Now, years later, I think she can see the humor in the story.

I don’t have any deep insight into how this story might relate to Violet or fatherhood. It’s just something her dad did once upon a time that I want her to know about. It tells her a few things about me. Things that, for better or for worse, haven’t changed much.

352 days old

Detritus

I emptied my pockets before going to bed. Their contents: a receipt, some change, my pocketknife, three strawberry baby puffs, one caterpillar finger puppet, and a dessicated pea.

351 days old

Who's That Girl?

My wife and I were clicking through the pictures on a relative’s Facebook page. We came to a picture of my niece on her couch, a baby perched on her lap. “Who’s that?” I wondered. Of course, within a moment, I realized it was Violet, but the moment was long enough to rattle me. Either I failed as a father (a tiny bit) in not recognizing my daughter or she’s changed so considerably since the picture was taken that she is no longer the baby we once had. I’m not sure which one I’m ready to accept.

350 days old

Only 15 days to go...

The invitations for Violet's first birthday party are in the mail...

349 days old