Wishing it all away

The Man took a long weekend to go to Dallas and visit his girls. He was gone for five days. For three of those days, The Kid was also gone, which left me to handle The Baby all by my lonesome. Naturally, The Baby saw fit to develop a fever and become a never-sleeper.

As luck would have it, I also had a fair amount of editing work to complete during The Manless days. And then, just to make things extra challenging, I was offered the community manager position with a Seattle startup. It's part-time, work from home, and a great opportunity, so I was thrilled. I might have even jumped up and down a little. But I agreed to start working right away and, on top of my other part-time, work from home, great opportunity editing job, I was also a bit overwhelmed.

And because I was on solo duty with The Baby, it was all too obvious just how much easier this would be if The Baby was just a little older. Old enough to know not to eat dead flies; old enough to not stick his fingers in outlets; old enough to not try to dive head-first into the toilet. Maybe even, gasp!, old enough to be in school for part of the day.

If only he was just a little older...

I lamented this too when I realized that I was almost going to have a weekend to myself. One that, before The Baby, would've meant I could go out with girl friends, read a book, order take out that The Man doesn't like, stay up late watching a movie that The Man doesn't want to see, and sleep diagonally across the bed. All. Night. Long.

"If only he was a little older," I thought, "I could send him to my mom's for the weekend and I could have one of those weekends."

If only he was just a little older...

Normally I have a very strict policy against such thoughts. I don't like to spend any amount of time wishing away my baby's baby years - years that I'll be no doubt wishing for as soon as they're over.

But last weekend, amidst the fever-induced screeching and the refusals of sleep and the foiling of a movie night and the working until 4 in the morning; between the constant tugging of little fists on my jeans and the chubby arms extending in anticipation of ascension; through my bleary eyes and utter exhaustion, I wished - hard - for him to be just a little older.