seattle babies

After twelve hours of sleep last night, I almost feel back to normal after OutDoorLab. I went to sleep at 9:30. On a Friday. (I couldn’t help think of HWMNBN and realize his night wasn’t going to even start for another two hours. No wonder he left.) If I can get one more night of similar, I may be back to normal. It’s ridiculous how one week in the mountains with a bunch of crazy children can wipe me out for so long.
Ever brilliant with my money, I am hoping that I can take enough massages to pay all my bills this month (what a concept) and have enough left over for a quick trip to Seattle for Halloween. I still can’t manage to go when there’s a chance to run into HWMNBN, and that night would be certain. I can’t make myself stay home on Halloween, and Gavin’s not old enough to take out trick-or-treating. Therefore, I need to get out of town. Even if it weren’t Halloween, I need to get the hell outta Dodge for a bit. ODL was great, but I need to be where I don’t know anyone or have the chance of running into anyone. Somewhere I feel at peace. Somewhere where I can shut my brain off, eat good food, be crazy on a Halloween night. We’ll see how my plan works out. I get to baby sit half of next weekend, which is wonderful, but also means I have to not earn massage money that weekend.
I got to baby sit a friend’s baby for nearly an hour the other night. We were headed back to his house when he got a dramatic phone call and had to talk forever. He sent me up to his apartment with his ten-month-old son, who is so sweet and cute. I’ve never really seen him misbehave. Having me and not his daddy scared him, as makes sense. He cried and cried and cried. We walked and bounced and walked. Cooed, sung, changed diapers, etc. Nothing worked. Finally, I sat down in the rocking chair, my back was killing me, and said, ‘tough kid, you’ll just have to cry,” and rocked and sang till he fell asleep. The poor kid did nothing wrong, he was just scared and missed his daddy. Still, I was ready to shake the little guy (not really, but I was very frustrated with him). Inside, I told myself, ‘I was wrong. I so don’t want a baby. This sucks.” Then, I took a few mental steps back and realized that I’d had Gavin at times where he just was upset and could not be consoled. Not once did I feel impatient with him or inconvenienced. I was just sad he was upset and it almost hurt me to have him crying. While I care about this other baby, very much. I don’t know how you couldn’t care for any baby, but I was surprised at myself that it made such a difference when it wasn’t Gavin. It highlighted how much I love Gavin and how much difference being family makes.