Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
During Paisley’s morning nap, I emailed my boss and told her I needed time off for a family emergency. She replied very quickly that she hoped things were all right and that it shouldn’t be a problem to cover my caseload for the week. But she requested I come in on Monday morning, if at all possible, to get things in place. I told her I would let her know by the end of the day if I couldn’t get there, then worried all afternoon about how I was going to make it happen. Did I take Paisley with me? I imagined myself walking through the lobby doors of the firm’s building wearing a suit, tie, and the baby sling and wanted to die. But as I had no one to watch her yet, I didn’t know if I’d have a choice. I figured I could ask Emme and that she’d probably say yes since Monday was her day off, but I didn’t want to.
After Paisley woke up and drank her bottle, I took her to the grocery store, which turned out to be a much bigger ordeal than I had anticipated, and I had anticipated a pretty fucking big ordeal. First, the carts at the grocery store didn’t have those built in seats for infants like the carts at Babies“R”Us, and I struggled to balance her car seat in the front compartment where little kids were supposed to sit. After a few minutes of grappling and sweating and muttering curse words under my breath, I was rescued by a merciful woman who took pity on me. “Here," she said. “Let me show you how to do it.”
When Paisley’s car seat was secure, I thanked her. “I’m new at this dad thing," I said apologetically. “Still learning how to do everything."
Things went okay for the next twenty minutes or so, but it was taking me forever to shop because I couldn’t leave the cart and run to grab something I’d forgotten two aisles back—and I kept forgetting everything (sleep deprivation is no joke). It’s not like I could say to Paisley, stay right here, I’ll be right back, and dash over to the produce section again. I had to bring her with me every time.
Then, of course, she decided to shit herself right in the middle of the canned vegetable aisle. Her face turned a shade of red that rivaled the crushed tomatoes, and she grunted like a four-hundred-pound deadweight lifter. Other shoppers, who previously had all stopped to tell me how cute she was, now seemed to avoid us. When she was finished, the stench surrounded us like a toxic cloud everywhere we went. It was so bad I ended up cutting the shopping trip short and running for the checkout without even hitting the dairy aisle, even though I was out of eggs and milk. Then, as we were waiting to be rung up, she decided to start screaming over absolutely nothing and wouldn’t stop.
“Sorry," I said to the cashier. And the customer ahead of me. And the customer behind me. And the woman one lane over. And anyone I passed on my way out to the parking lot.
I put her in the car first and then loaded the grocery bags into my trunk. It was on the way home that I wondered how I was supposed to get her and all of the grocery bags up to my apartment without the big cart. “How the hell do people do this?” I muttered out loud.
Her answer was a fresh round of wailing. I didn’t blame her.
In the end, I made the first trip up to my apartment carrying as many grocery bags as I could in one hand and her car seat in the other. Then I put her in the stroller, wheeled her down to the parking garage, and loaded up. Bags were hanging off my arms and bulging out the bottom of the stroller, but I managed to get everything in one trip.
The one good thing that day was that I managed to bathe her all by myself without doing harm to either one of us or making too big a mess in the kitchen. In fact, she actually seemed to enjoy getting her hair washed, and when she was dry and dressed in a clean sleeper, I sat her on my lap and brushed her hair for the first time. I couldn’t get it to lie completely flat, but it looked pretty fucking cute. She seemed to like that too, although she kept trying to grab the brush out of my hand. When I was done with her hair, I let her play with it, and she immediately tried to eat the thing. I watched her gnaw on the handle for a couple minutes, then I took out my phone and snapped a picture of her—my first.