Mr. Mom for a Day

Today, Meri had a big meeting at the big office. Grandma Clare was in Puerto Rico, Grandma Gail was in Greenport, leaving me as the only remaining choice to care for Max. After his seemingly endless fit last night, he was lucky I still went along with the plan. (Feeding #1 was in-and-out. Feeding #2 was like Chinese water torture. Holy cow. According to this book Lisa recommended, this fussyness peaks at week 6. That's week 6 after his due date, so we have another 2-3 weeks of this perhaps. We'll see. Then, oddly, you forget it even happened according to this book. I don't know how that can be, but whatever, I digress. Back to my day with Max).

Today we accomplished a fair amount. Max and I learned a lot during our day, about life, about parenting, about fatherhood, about love, about trust. It was the most rewarding day ever. OK, I'm kidding with this cheesie stuff. It was a bit fun. He are the highlights of what we learned today:

• Work phone calls need to be kept to 90 second bursts. Longer than that and you run the risk of Max and your co-workers losing patience.
• You can read your Blackberry, get worked up over stupid work issues, but then have no way/time to respond more formally from your computer. So, you're left stewing over stupid stuff.
• Prepping Max for a walk is pretty easy. Wrap a blanket around him; throw on a hat (assuming we can find one that fits) and you're done.
• Getting the kid outside is like dropping Ambien in his bottle.
• The brake on the stroller is a fantastic feature that should be used. (I tried helping an old lady into our building and she had this horrid look on her face saying "get him, get him". Apparantly I left the stroller on the smallest of inclines. Who knew?)
• Rolling into retail stores with a baby means you get fast, courteous service.

And, here's what we did today:

• We started the day with some exercises. Like his father, Max spent about 10 minutes on his belly, struggling to do even a single push up.
• Max and I were on Spitzer-watch
• Max ate brunch.
• I checked email quickly
• Max and I were on Spitzer-watch again
• I ate lunch quickly
• Max got ready for his walk. (He insisted on bringing a beer along).
• On our walk, we went to Lululemon, Super Runner's Shop, Starbucks, OTB (we won big on the trifecta) and the Pioneer supermarket by us to buy some cheap beer.
  

Photographic evidence of our day:


Max doing a push up.


Max ready to roll.


Max and his Sam Adams Light.












Here's me and Max on the corner of 67th & Columbus. I swear, I look like one of the local, crazy old ladies who walk around with a 100 shopping bags and two rat-sized dogs in a cart.