Mind Games
I am loathe to admit it, but I’m a little superstitious. Every day I put my left sock on first, then my right, then my left shoe, and finally my right. Every day. I know that it doesn’t mean anything, that if I put the right sock on first, the world isn’t going to end, but, frankly, I’d rather not take that chance.
Another one of my superstitions is that I don’t like to say when things are going well, for fear that by just uttering the words, all heck would break loose. For example, I won’t say that Henry is perfect. Ever. Just typing it gets me a little worried. He’s a great, wonderful, chubby, happy baby. But he’s not perfect. If I say it, something will happen. He’ll cry uncontrollably for 2 straight hours. He’ll skin his knee. He’ll start to hate me.
I only write this because today I was foolish enough to say something, knowing in the back of my mind that as soon as the words came out of my mouth, all heck would break loose.
You see, Henry has been a prolific pooper ever since he was born. Five, six, seven poops a day, and Kristen and I have both been waiting patiently for those numbers to go down to the expected one or two. Well, today could’ve been the day. There was one bowel movement at 4:30 in the morning (those are my favorite; nothing says fun more like a half-awake father trying to make sure everything is tucked in and where it should be) and then nothing more for hours. Nothing after his 6:30 feeding or his 8:30 or 11:00 or even 1:00. For ten long hours, Henry kept things in control, enough so that I called Kristen at work in astonishment.
“Maybe he’ll go a whole day,” I said. “Maybe our diaper bill will drop from ridiculous to just plain terrible.”
“Maybe,” Kristen said, obviously uninterested in such talk.
So I hung up the phone, picked up Henry, and started walking toward his room where I had some fun playing to get started.
And then it happened. 5.3 on the Richter Scale, I think. To say it was explosive is to say that Farrah Fawcett had great hair. I’m not going to get into any of the gory details (I’ve already written enough), but lets just say that there were tears (mine).
The good thing is, it’s nearly 9:00 in the evening, Henry’s been asleep for a couple hours, and there hasn’t been another poop. This is a good development, all things considered.
Of course, now that I’ve written about it, tomorrow there will be 6 and I’ll curse my own name.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
I concur. I once told your wife that Tallen had never had a “blow-out”. Next day? BLOW.OUT.