New Normal (HoL 2)

I’m starting to get back into a normal routine today. I took last week off which was great, but now I’m back at work, and most of the “Gift food” has run out, so it’s time to role up my sleeves and get to work.

Nancy and I feel tired quite a bit, but I don’t think we’ve ever felt like we couldn’t survive. It helps to have a great network of friends and church folk to check on us now and then.

I think Isaac has found his hands. The other day he watched his hand float in space almost randomly with a look on his face like “What the hell is this thing?” Isaac has four basic moods.

1) Sleep. (This is his favorite)

2) Awake and busy. He stares around the room, kicks, talks, smokes. This is when he is the most fun.

3) Screensaver face. This is when his face randomly shuffles through emotions in no particular order. This is his default face.

4) Crying. There are five levels of crying.

1) A few whimpers, you know it’s coming

2) A steady quiet cry.

3) The highest level or tolerable crying.

4) This is the standard level, punctuated with frequent screams

5) Full on, Red Level cry. Whatever you are doing, you have to stop. You can’t drive with a level five cry going on. This a constant loud cry punctuated with coughs and gasps for air. This is the cry you hope no one ever hears, because H.R.S. would immediately take a baby from anyone
so incompetent to let the baby cry this loud.

His maximum sleep time is four hours. Not too bad, but Nancy and I aren’t college age anymore, so it’s been a little rough.

Last week I went with the youth for half a day at Carowinds on Monday. It’s a “Six Flagish” roller coaster park down in Charlotte (As if anyone I know has ever sat in a room with me for more than five minutes and didn’t have to listen to me yap about roller coasters). Around noon, I got a call from Nancy. Evidently the “Check coolant” light came on in the car, and this was more than she could deal with. She had felt very cool, independent and on top of things. She had the baby dressed, in the car seat, and was going to meet some friends for lunch. When she put the key in the ignition, the light came on.

Oh, did I mention her asshole husband was an hour and a half away riding roller coasters?

When I finally got a hold of her, she was crying so hard, I thought wild coyotes had broken through the windows and were eating the baby in front of her. I panicked and offered to drive back to Greensboro, but she said there was nothing I could do at this point. She was still upset, but had cooled down considerably by the time I talked to her. She never was rude to me where I could hear it, although she did admit to calling me a few names when she first saw the light go on.

The rest of the week was great. We took Isaac to the drive in movie theater in Eden. We wanted to go see “The 40 Year Old Virgin” (Isaac picked the movie), but by the time we got to the theater, there was no movie being shown, and no other cars in the lot. I went into the
concession stand and asked the projectionist if he was still going to show a movie tonight. He said that no one has shown up for the first show, so he wasn’t going to show it tonight, but if we wanted to stick around, he was going to test his new print of “The Brothers Grimm” to see if it would work for the next night’s show. So we got to see a free preview of a movie we really wanted to see, the night before it was released, in our very own drive in theater.

And he gave us a free bag of M & Ms.

The other high point of the week was going to the zoo. We know Isaac didn’t know what the hell was going on, the point was more just to prove that we could go on a short road trip, and not come back completely mad and covered in feces.

My favorite moment at the zoo, was when we first arrived. Isaac was hungry, so we found some shaded Adirondack chairs with a view of the lake. It was the perfect temperature, and there was a slight breeze. Nancy breast fed Isaac right there. We were discrete, but we weren’t
hidden either.

It felt really great to watch them together, with my feet kicked up, a breeze blowing around me, with a spectacular view. Watching him feed was beautiful and natural, and yet slightly subversive as well. It was a holy moment.

Oh and I took a picture of Isaac next to a life size bronze bison with a huge wang as well. That part was pretty good too.

Big Matt