Thursday
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This morning it dawns on me that we leave after our show on Saturday to go record the new album in Nashville and then we head straight into a tour with Sanctus Real. I won’t be home until the end of October. Two whole months. By then my baby will be almost 7 months old. She is going on 5 months now. By then my baby will have her first tooth. By then the weather will be cold. By then she will be eating solids (if I am ever brave enough to feed them to her). By then I will need a Halloween costume for her. And for me. We are going to be matching this year; I can’t believe I get to start trick-or-treating all over again! This makes me supremely happy! I will finally get my chance to be the Little Mermaid! By then she will wear different size diapers, fit in different clothes, and she will need a coat. And maybe some gloves. Oh, and maybe her feet will fit into shoes by then.
How do you pack for such an outing? I have mom friends who get overwhelmed bringing their babies somewhere new for a week. And here I am staring down two months. Who signed me up for this gig? I don’t think I want it today.
I want to crawl back in bed and claim disability. Early retirement. I want to lay on the couch and eat donuts. I want to move to Australia. (I stole this line from Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, NO Good, Very Bad Day.)
I mope for a while and then rally the troops. I spend Thursday and Friday packing and cleaning. Remembering to turn off the ice machine, unplug chords from the wall, and scrubbing toilets. I try and give the small amounts of food I have in the fridge to the neighbors because I cannot bear to throw away perfectly decent food. I scrub the shower with my toothbrush, which I do not use again. I am afraid that if I leave the shower with even a bit of mold or mildew I will come home to a butterfly or insect garden in my bathtub. That would be gross.
Annie wakes up Friday night at 2:30 a.m. covered, head to toe in her own urine. We switched to Luvs diapers. Luvs diapers are now my enemy. I have to basically bathe her on the changing station, feed her, and try to get her back to sleep… in my bed. I felt so bad for her. Who knows how long she had been lying there like that. And the kid doesn’t cry when she’s unhappy, she just rolls with it, or in this case, lies with it. We woke up three hours later and left the house for our show today. And now, we are driving home with an ETA of 12:15 p.m.
Whew. Australia does sound nice.
But tomorrow we will leave for Nashville.
And tomorrow a new week begins.