Someone's got a case of the Mondays

Monday nights tend to be our most challenging schedule-wise with Zachary; I've got orchestra rehearsal and Meh has to work until late. The search for an actual paid babysitter is on, but friends have been very generously offering to watch him during the interim. Hopefully most of their baby-sitting has involved sitting in front of our television, reading a book, or otherwise hanging out in a mellow manner. I feel bad that they don't get to really play with Zachary (or often even see him, since I'm putting him to bed by the time folks can arrive after work), but at the same time, late night interactions with him generally involve him being angry and/or crying, so no news is good news.

Timing for the exit to orchestra is particularly tough, since he goes to bed in that grey zone when I really should be heading out the door to get there on time. Last night was the most difficult yet; though we started the bedtime ritual (bath, PJs, now reading a book [more on that in a sec], then his go-to-bed snack) at 5:45, he was apparently not quite ready for sleep an hour later when I had to leave. After several attempts to calm him down, in the end I did have to leave him crying. Our friends R and B later reported that he conked out as my car left the garage, so in retrospect I feel a bit better. But it was still so hard to leave him unhappy!

Backing up to the bedtime ritual itself, bath time was as happy as always - smiles and laughs at his Big Bird towel/sponge thing, kicking and splashing, and the traditional end-of-bathtime-signalling peeing in the tub. I'm even getting better at keeping him non-mad during drying and getting dressed for bed, though he was still hollering by the end. And my new favorite part of the ritual, which Meh had introduced a few days earlier, is the reading of a bedtime book. He calms down and gets all quiet as we sit down and read through a colorful board book - sometimes he gently touches the pages or will try to turn them, super cute! I wasn't sure if she usually read him one or two books, but Zachary answered that for me when he got angry about halfway through the attempted second book. I'll stick with Meh's ritual of one for now, and maybe just extend the length of the book itself as he gets more into reading; by the time he's 8, maybe we can get cracking on War and Peace.

Earlier yesterday (jeez, this is the most chronologically backwards posting yet), we made a slight alteration to the usual Monday schedule (well, if 'usual' can be used when it's been in effect for all of three weeks now): Meh dropped Zachary off with me at the office on her way into her own work. I was reminded of the time during my parental leave when Zachary and I hung out at work while the house was getting cleaned; the experience this time was pretty similar: he had a giant blowout (this time from every possible diaper exit); we got all cleaned up; we danced a little; he fell asleep; I did a little work with him sleeping on me (he refuses the carseat, at least for me); he woke up smling; I gave him some lunch; and we headed out. It was actually nice to be able to get a little bit of work done somewhere in there, so I think we'll keep doing this in the future when practical.