Tight Schedule

Ring-ring. Ring-ring. My Blackberry was ringing at my bedside. A quick glance at the clock revealed that it was just after 4am. By the time I answered, the caller had hung up. I checked for a VM and they had left one. It was work. After acknowledging the message I went back to sleep for what I planned to be another couple hours. That didn’t happen. Not 30 minutes later my Blackberry rang once again. Suddenly I was up and working before 5am. That’s earlier than any normal day. I worked for a couple of hours before going back to sleep for another couple of hours. It now seemed clear that my weekend was going to be a doosey! I woke again around 8am and leaped to my feet. I didn’t feel that good but had to get up and get moving nonetheless. The house was already rockin’ with little ones – Jacob, Bella, and Lil’ Rocky. I found some space to do my exercises and logged back into my work PC too. We were dealing with a big issue at work that required some of my undivided attention. In addition, I had a very aggressive personal agenda that included the following: running, retrieving my dad’s trailer, going after a half cord of firewood, picking up the boat and taking it to be winterized, going to Lindsey’s apartment to clean, and then coming home to spend time with baby Olivia. All of that had me just a little stressed since successfully executing the agenda required close attention to the clock. I stayed on tasks even after waking an hour after I desired and adding in the work stuff. I left for my run by 9am and was back before 10am. I left to get the trailer and wood by 10:20am. I was back with the wood by 11:20 – a full 40 minutes earlier than I had budgeted. I was on track. I failed to mention that Lindsey left our house this morning sometime after my run in a huff after we tried advising her about certain meds and the way she’s been interacting with Lil’ Rocky. She never has accepted criticism well. We said what needed to be said for everyone’s well-being. I was very pleased and a little surprised to be on track. I contacted my team at work to check on our progress with the issue at hand. They were doing as good as expected. I tried to get Jacob to go along with me to address the boat winterization. He normally likes going to the storage unit and what not. Today he didn’t want to go. I picked up the boat and headed north to Paul’s Marine. I had a 1:20pm appt but arrived at 1pm sharp. Almost on queue, it began to spit snow just as I pulled up. I couldn’t help but find humor in that! J They gladly took my boat right in and began the process. Meanwhile, I went into the lounge area to try and catch some college football on their big screen, but sadly, I couldn’t get it working. After looking at a couple new boats, they called my name either to alert me that my boat was ready or to tell me there was a problem. Good day! My boat was finished. I paid my fees and headed back towards home. I dropped the boat at storage, stopped for gas, and was back home by 2:30pm. I was 30 minutes ahead of plan. We took our time preparing to leave for Lindsey’s. We gathered the kids and our tubs of cleaning supplies and tools and left the house just after 3pm – still on schedule. Once at Lindsey’s Mindy headed into the kitchen and I headed upstairs to deal with the hallway and bedroom. They were both really dirty. The most difficult piece was dealing with Jacob and Bella who were a bit high maintenance. They were constantly hungry and playing a little rough. Somehow though we muddled through. By 6pm we finished the major cleaning. All it needs now are some finishing touches and lots of ongoing TLC. Lindsey should be proud of it. We took several pictures to show off our work. I wish we had taken some before hand, but didn’t. As we departed, Ashley contacted Mindy to change our plans slightly. She requested that we pick Olivia up instead of her bringing her over. We were more than happy to oblige. The sky was very pretty as we headed east. I asked Mindy to snap some pictures. We arrived at Kelly’s around 6:30pm and retrieved our little bundle of joy. Jacob was surprisingly good at helping feed Olivia on our trip home. As usual, once we were home I ordered pizzas from Minelli’s and then walked Ykraps while Mindy and the kids dotted over Olivia. While at Minelli’s picking up our pizzas, I ran into my old friend, John Raugh, my best man. He and I go back to my wild days hanging at the Al Rosa Villa, Agora (Newport, and Sugar Shack). John was my roommate and played in several big hair rock n’ roll bands. He’s changed a lot. We discussed hooking up and sometime soon. What a throw back. I took the pizzas home and ate dinner with the family. Olivia slept while we ate. Afterwards, Mindy gave Bella a bath and I helped Jacob with a shower. Olivia hung out in her chair. Around 8:30pm we put the kids to bed. They went right to sleep. I poured myself a beer and Mindy a glass of wine. Olivia had other ideas. Despite eating around 7pm, she cried and cried. We decided to try feeding her again. And surprisingly, she ate like she was starving! Come 9:30 she began fussing again, which was just a half hour after eating. This time we knew she wasn’t hungry. Mindy gave her some gas medicine and put some quality lotion on her sore looking bottom. That seemed to help but not fully. Whatever we did, she didn’t seem to want to sleep. Both of us were completely exhausted from our long day. I could see the worry in Mindy’s and her in mine. We hoped beyond hope that she would finally fall asleep. As she started to dose we put her in the guest room in her bed (pack-n’-play). We turned the baby monitor on and wound the mobile. It worked for only about 15 minutes. Incidentally, those baby monitors are unbelievable. It sounded like she was in our room! That being said, we decided to put her in her more than comfy carrier chair and bring her in our room. Almost miraculously she stopped crying and fell asleep, and so did we.