The Toughest Training on the Planet

Baby Blues for Monday, May 28

While the big little guy (Makoto) was sick this weekend, the little, little guy was more or less left to his own devices in terms of entertainment. Or rather, since Beloved was either at the doctor's with Makoto or shopping to pick up needed supplies for a sick kid as well as the usual amounts of food needed to feed her beasts, it was Hikaru and Daddy all weekend long, including nights (We slept in another room to keep Hikaru from catching what Makoto has, getting woken up in case there was another midnight bout, or just playing with the puke bowl). Once again I was fully reminded of just how physically demanding it is to chase after a toddler who wants to go where he wants to go and do what he wants to do, no matter what Daddy might think about the subject.

Especially no matter what Daddy might think about being turned into a chair, or a stepladder, or a jungle gym.

It was a somewhat exhausted guy who got up to go back to school and teach and wonder just how the hell does Beloved deal with that every single day?! I should mention of course that this wasn't a mini-dumb Daddy movie in the making, I had not problem cleaning, making Hikaru food to eat (Though from his reaction I apparently didn't mix his milk JUST right), or playing with him. Diapers have been something I mastered a long time ago, and since I'm the guy in charge of vacuuming the house every weekend, the usual clean-up proceeded as usual with Hikaru attempting to ride the vacuum or just sit behind it for that windblown toddler look that he's so fond of.

But it was a long slog with very little down time in terms of getting what I wanted to get done, done. One cannot reason with a toddler the way one can with a slightly older child, a one-year-old works on NOW. I want to do this NOW, Daddy. I want to play with this NOW. I want to eat that NOW and no matter how gifted your tongue might be, there's just no sweet talking them into waiting for a second while I finish up a post or read the paper.

But, still, tired as I was at the end of the day, falling asleep about 5 minutes after Hikaru, I have to admit... it was fun.

I think I'll stick with spending my time with slightly older kids though, my students might roll their eyes at me when I tell them to wait, but they are very unlikely to attempt to try and climb up my pants leg if I refuse to give them a snack.