Covert Electrical Work

Lately I've been pretty keyed up...not sleeping well at night, up late with little projects, up early to go to the office...that sort of thing.

The timing has been good, as Amy has been sick and doing a lot of sleeping and I've been left to my own devices once she and Babe-O are in bed for the night.

So tonight, the girls were both in bed by about ten and I decided to see if I could make some progress on Babe-O's playroom without waking anybody up. So far we've installed hardwood floors, painted, and installed trim. The nagging loose ends -- stuff that I need two baby-free hands to do -- include replacing all of the electrical switches/outlets with pretty white ones and putting up a ceiling fan that's been sitting in a box in the hallway for a few months now.

The fan is a must, since the existing overhead light provides all the ambiance of a police interrogation room with none of the charm. You can't tell in this picture, but one of the bulbs is even burned out just for good measure. In the otherwise super cute and tidy playroom, the light looks quite sad and pathetic.

So anyway, I snuck out to the garage for a ladder and down to the basement for screwdrivers and electrical stuff. Once I was all set up and had the fan out of the box, I went back down to the basement to take care of the circuit breaker. Unfortunately, our house is wired for the ever handy bedroom/hallway/bedroom circuit, so when I flicked it off, Amy lost power in our room, killing the TV she falls asleep to and rustling her sick self out of bed to find out what the hell was going on.

So much for letting her be surprised in the morning.

My cover blown, I went back to working on the fan and she went back to bed. It took a little over an hour, but the thing is done. I'm pretty happy with the one-hour timeframe when you take into account all of the tiptoeing and careful sneaking around needed to keep the girls from waking up (again).

Here it is, all done and ready for action.

I took a shower, headed downstairs, and am now writing this blog post while I watch an old movie and eat Cocoa Pebbles.

Also, I'm open to suggestions if anyone has ideas on how to drive nails without banging on them with a hammer. If I can figure that out, my nighttime project possibilities will open up considerably.

It's all fun and games until...

Babe-O knows quite a few words by now. One of them, it turns out, is "fart."

She learned this from her mother.

Anyway, not only does she know what a fart is, she has also picked up on a universal truth: farts are funny.

Last night she was screaming bloody murder as I tried to put her on the potty and I was just about to write her off as inconsolable when I accidentally ripped one. At a little slower than the speed of sound (and a little faster than the speed of smell), Babe-O went from screaming to laughing.

A few seconds later she was doing her business on the potty and a few seconds after that, we were done and getting her dressed again. Brilliant.

Of course now it's only a matter of time before I try to console the baby and end up shitting myself.

How many boobs in a quart?

Tonight Amy needed to do some shopping/decompressing, so Babe-O and I were left to our own devices for bedtime. We knew this has a chance to get ugly, as the little one breastfeeds twice a day: first thing in the morning and right before bed.

It's been a while since I've done the bedtime routine solo, but as I remember, I'm a consistent disappointment in the nursing department.

So here's how it went down.

Amy left. I put Babe-O in the bath. So far so good.

After the bath I blowdryed her hair and got her dressed for bed.

Then we went downstairs and I picked out a drinking glass that looked like it would hold about as much milk as one boob. We filled it up with the organic whole milk that Babe-O drinks and we headed upstairs.

I cleared the bed off, shut the lights off, turned on the TV, and then grabbed Amy's nursing pillow and wrapped it around my waist. Babe-O crawled right over, I plopped her on her butt on top of the pillow, and held up the glass with a drinking straw in it.

She took a long drink, draining the whole thing in one stretch. Then I rolled her onto the bed next to me and shut off the TV. After that, Babe-O sat up, laid down, sat up, laid down, and then finally crashed out on top of her favorite fuzzy blanket.

I build her standard protective pillow fortress along the edges of the bed so that she wouldn't roll off and went downstairs to get some work done. In case you're wondering, THAT my friends, is how it's done.