My Dinner with Abbie
Ellie was on call last night. This means she came home just long enough to eat dinner, and then I didn’t see her until, well she hasn’t come home yet, but the important thing is I took care of Abbie by myself all night. For most guys, if television and movies are to be believed, this is the entrance ramp to the hilarity highway as dad scrambles to care for his daughter and winds up stapling a newspaper to her because he’s run out of diapers in between burning dinner and overfilling the washing machine with soap. Fortunately I take care of her by myself pretty much all day every day, so tacking the night onto my duties is just a continuation of the rest of the day.
During Ellie’s brief layover at home, I made us dinner without burning anything besides my hand when I grabbed a pot handle that had been resting too close to an active burner. While pasta was boiling and spaghetti sauce was microwaving, I was feeding Abbie. Right now, any foods requiring utensils we must spoon into her mouth for her. I’m not going to feed her forever, so someday she’ll have to feed herself, unless she finds a revenue stream capable of supporting servants to feed her, but that had better be a pretty big revenue stream because I’ll be darned if she’s going to hire dinner servants before we get a maid and possibly a nanny.
With much grunting and scrambling, I managed to put food on the table before Ellie had to leave and dinner in Abbie. Not that I’m trying to brag here; if I were I would work in the fact that I fed the pets in this time period, too. I’m just trying to establish that I was really busy while everyone else ate. Generally this isn’t a problem since I can eat while Abbie busies herself with juice and Tasteeos. Unfortunately, last night Abbie decided she wanted no part of her Tasteeos, though the juice was very nice, thank you, and demanded release from her high chair upon completion of the palatable portion of her dinner before I even had a chance to make myself a plate. I complied and returned to spooning spaghetti for myself.
At this point she normally she runs off to amuse herself by chasing the cats or ripping her books or whatever she wants to do that won’t result in injury; the important thing is she leaves me alone so I can enjoy dinner. Last night, though, she decided to hang on my pant leg screaming with boredom. Without Ellie around to entertain her, I carried her off to her room to sit and enjoy some fine books, or possibly pull all her clothes out of her drawer, or whatever she wanted to do that didn’t require my participation. As soon I sat back down to start on my steaming plate of spaghetti, she came running out of her room wailing with boredom. Like a fly to sugar or a network programming executive to reality shows, she reattached herself to my pant leg and resumed screaming. I looked into her eyes and saw that sometimes young children, try as hard as they might, just can’t entertain themselves. I looked longingly at my cooling plate of spaghetti, realized it was almost cold already anyway, and did what any good parent would do: I called the dog in to entertain her. When our lousy dog failed to come, I gave up and ate with a child howling at my leg. Children need to learn to do things for themselves, and if I drop everything to entertain Abbie every time she whines with boredom she’ll never learn to entertain herself. She will need to entertain herself someday, unless she finds a revenue stream capable of supporting a maid, a nanny, dinner servants, and personal entertainers, and that’s just silly.
During Ellie’s brief layover at home, I made us dinner without burning anything besides my hand when I grabbed a pot handle that had been resting too close to an active burner. While pasta was boiling and spaghetti sauce was microwaving, I was feeding Abbie. Right now, any foods requiring utensils we must spoon into her mouth for her. I’m not going to feed her forever, so someday she’ll have to feed herself, unless she finds a revenue stream capable of supporting servants to feed her, but that had better be a pretty big revenue stream because I’ll be darned if she’s going to hire dinner servants before we get a maid and possibly a nanny.
With much grunting and scrambling, I managed to put food on the table before Ellie had to leave and dinner in Abbie. Not that I’m trying to brag here; if I were I would work in the fact that I fed the pets in this time period, too. I’m just trying to establish that I was really busy while everyone else ate. Generally this isn’t a problem since I can eat while Abbie busies herself with juice and Tasteeos. Unfortunately, last night Abbie decided she wanted no part of her Tasteeos, though the juice was very nice, thank you, and demanded release from her high chair upon completion of the palatable portion of her dinner before I even had a chance to make myself a plate. I complied and returned to spooning spaghetti for myself.
At this point she normally she runs off to amuse herself by chasing the cats or ripping her books or whatever she wants to do that won’t result in injury; the important thing is she leaves me alone so I can enjoy dinner. Last night, though, she decided to hang on my pant leg screaming with boredom. Without Ellie around to entertain her, I carried her off to her room to sit and enjoy some fine books, or possibly pull all her clothes out of her drawer, or whatever she wanted to do that didn’t require my participation. As soon I sat back down to start on my steaming plate of spaghetti, she came running out of her room wailing with boredom. Like a fly to sugar or a network programming executive to reality shows, she reattached herself to my pant leg and resumed screaming. I looked into her eyes and saw that sometimes young children, try as hard as they might, just can’t entertain themselves. I looked longingly at my cooling plate of spaghetti, realized it was almost cold already anyway, and did what any good parent would do: I called the dog in to entertain her. When our lousy dog failed to come, I gave up and ate with a child howling at my leg. Children need to learn to do things for themselves, and if I drop everything to entertain Abbie every time she whines with boredom she’ll never learn to entertain herself. She will need to entertain herself someday, unless she finds a revenue stream capable of supporting a maid, a nanny, dinner servants, and personal entertainers, and that’s just silly.
posted by Matt at
9:32 PM
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