So after a much too brief leave of absence, I returned to work the last half of this week. To say that I was super-excited to be back at the grind would be a great big stinker of a lie. Being OOTO (that's "Out Of The Office" for you non-office types, not "Off Over The Ozarks" like you were thinking) for so long caused me to get used to spending my days engaged in a variety of simple yet satisfying activities, things like playing outside with Henry, enjoying the cooing and gurgling that can emanate only from a newborn, blatantly ogling my wife, not shaving, practicing my juggling. It's a good life. Oh, and I conducted an experiment to test the depths of Simon's stay-asleep-itude, inspired by my amazement at the sight of a newborn baby who actually likes to sleep. Henry took a staunch anti-sleep stance in his first months on this planet, so much so that we couldn't even lay him down without him letting loose with a blast of screams. We actually managed to bottle some of those screams and sent them off to a lab where a team of mathematicians, linguists, and anthropologists translated them into English for us, so now we know that all that screaming was just Henry's way of asking, "GOD, WHY DO I HAVE SUCH SHITTY PARENTS?!" But lo these two years and some change later, the great Simon experiment of 2008 boldly asks the question, "Will he, in fact, stay asleep while his father hammers nails into a wall in the very same room?" Turns out, yeah, he will...I got a whole wall full of pictures hung, and not a single baby dream was disturbed.
But it was back to work for me this week, so that kind of fun has to be relegated back to evenings, weekends, and the occasional day worked from home. I was so not eager to be back that I halfway snapped at the first person who started with the litany of baby questions. Not that I don't love talking about my kids, it's just that it was 8:00 and I was NOT in my pajamas. That can be hard on a sensitive soul like me. So I spent the last couple of days repeatedly answering The Series of Standard New Baby Questions, which was pretty cool. I'm pretty happy to ramble about my kids given half a chance. Plus I grew a beard while I was out, so I had a lot of people point out to me that I had a beard. "Holy crap dude, you got a beard! And it's growing RIGHT OUT OF YOUR FACE!"
The human animal's powers of observation never cease to awe and inspire.
7 comments:
Dude, going to work sucks.
You should have shown them the beard on your butt- that would have thrown them.
mr kaos can play the drums in the room directly below k's and she'll sleep right through it... But woe is the person who speaks within 100 yards...
So, is the beard growing on your forehead or something?!
That part about Henry's screams made me LOL!!!
I am so glad you guys have a sleeping baby. That rocks.
Mostly I am glad you finally posted!!! I missed reading your stuff!
Also, it should be a rule that you can wear at least 1 pajama article of clothing to work, to ease back into the routine. Like, say, just the pants. You just have to stay seated all day. :)
Oh yeah = more pictures!
And of course you'll be posting a picture of said face from which a beard grows out of. Right?
Did you tell them you were growing it in solidarity of the writer's strike?
We had one baby that would stay asleep no matter what. It boggled my mind that she could sleep through hammering right outside her door and never even flinch.
I can't wait to hear more stories about your kids! Hope your work day goes fast so you can get home to your family!
Babies that sleep. I've heard of such a thing but I always thought they were the stuff of myth and legend.
What?! You get days off work if you have kids? No one told me THAT!
Kelly!
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