GoodGoodGood

After all the bitching I’ve done, I just want to say, this shabbat’s visit with babydaddy was wonderful. (He sees her roughly every six weeks or so).

For the first time since the baby was born he said, “How do you do this by yourself every day?” Of course, he was only referring to putting shoes on the baby, because you can’t really do sock, sock, shoe, shoe; you have to do sock, shoe, sock, shoe. She's a little Houdini when you're trying to dress her.

It may not sound like much, but coming from a man who told me I wasn’t breastfeeding correctly when baby was 11 weeks old because it was different than how I’d done it at 4 weeks—and nagged me for two weeks to double check with a doctor, though baby was gaining 24 ounces a week, until I notsonicely asked him to stop—it was wonderful.

This Shabbat he 1. took care of baby while I went to services both Friday evening and Saturday morning.
2. arranged the furniture and set the table for lunch while I was at services.
3. sent a gift card the week before to cover the cost of the Shabbat meals.
4. washed the lunch dishes.
5. changed baby almost every time she needed it (he only tried the “it’s your turn” on me once).
6. volunteered to babysit while I went out motzi Shabbat! It was the third time I’d been out sans baby since she was born.
7. stayed Sunday morning long enough for me to go to the farmer’s market alone.

Yes, babydaddy does dress baby funny—he put the cover-alls on BACKWARDS, and also the diaper (???????). He put on a sweater vest UNDER the cover-alls. But who cares.

Baby was loved and cuddled and fed and clothed by her abba; she was warm and happy. And it was good good good for both of them to have some alone time together without me. And it was good for me to have some alone time alone.

I complimented him over and over.
Wouldn’t it be great if this were the new status quo?

oh oh oh! last week the staged reading of a book-length poem I'd translated from the Czech was filmed by Czech television!
Good times indeed.