Blogging? Who has the time?

Both children home. Both parents home. Dad back to work; Mom back to being Mom; Toby back to being two; Alicia back to eating, sleeping, breathing and growing. It's nice. It's fun. It's becoming normal. And it's usually quite hectic.

We would like to give you a glimpse into the joys and trials of this new, normal life of ours, just as we tried to open windows into our temporarily troublous times, now happily (hopefully) in the past. But it can be hard to describe the unremarkable, and even harder to find a spare moment to do it.

Michelle and Toby are out grocery shopping, and Alicia is sleeping peacefully with a full belly and a clean diaper. Opportunities like this are rare.

So I'll attempt to reflect a bit on our new life in the slow lane. I'll let Michelle tell you about the difficulties of wrangling two kids, since she does it on her own many days of the week. And maybe she's better qualified to talk about Alicia's progress, but I'll say that it's promising. She's gaining weight, perhaps not as rapidly as we'd like. She's eating more and with less effort, almost as if she turned a sharp corner about a week ago and suddenly had a better appetite, or more energy with which to sate it. Caring for her is a repetitive but sometimes tricky routine; along with the regular diaper changing and feeding (both bottle and breast), there are medications to dose, added to a bottle of formula four times during the day, there are oxygen tanks to hook up and keep track of (they last about two and a half days each), and a monitor to carry around (don't forget to turn it off when she feeds, and back on again when she's finished!). But all these things become normal so quickly.

Toby has already become comfortable with all this equipment and knows not to touch it. He still has to be reminded sometimes not to roar too ferociously at his sister when he's being a tiger, or that she needs her sleep when he wants her to play. But he can also be very affectionate and gentle with her when he remembers how special she is.

For a working dad, it's not a bad deal. I say goodbye in the morning and get to lose myself in stimulating work (some days), then come home and take care of one kid or the other while Michelle finishes getting dinner on the table. Or I make dinner. Either way. The weather's been so nice that Toby and I usually go outside after dinner; he rides his trike around while I shoot hoops. Toby goes to bed, Michelle and I can unwind for a little bit, then we're usually off to bed pretty early as well. I have Alicia duty for the first half of the night; she usually sleeps for two and a half or three hours straight between bottles, so often I'm only up once during the night. Change the diaper, feed her, then hold her for a few minutes while her stomach settles (she refluxes if you lay her down again right away). I've been reading a book by one of my favorite authors and am finding it a strange experience. Since I've read most of the book at 12 or 1 am, I don't remember much of it during the day. I couldn't really tell you much in particular about it right now. But when I pick it up in the still of night, I know what's happening and continue on without difficulty. When I'm finished, what will my impression of it be? Will I be deeply moved and impressed, as I usually am by her books, by night, but unaffected by day? Will I need to set the alarm just to remember what it was about? How strange my mind is.

Anyway, the weekends are nice. We don't get much done beyond laundry and the aforementioned grocery shopping. We've joined Netflix and it's great. So far we've mostly been catching up on new releases, but the two movies we have now are a combined 58 years old. Incidentally, so are Michelle and I.

Michelle will tell you more at some point. I need to wrap this post up with a little game of blog tag courtesy of my brother.

4 Jobs I've Had
1. Pizza Man (still my favorite job I ever had)
2. Quicksilver courier (for three months)
3. Pharmacy Technician
4. Computer Programmer

4 Shows/Movies I've been addicted to
1. West Wing
2. Six Feet Under
3. Fight Club
4. X-Files (way back when)

4 Countries I'd Like to Visit
1. Italy
2. Australia
3. Singapore
4. California

4 Books I've enjoyed recently
1. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
2. The World According to Garp
3. Bel Canto
4. Before Their Time

4 People I look like
1. I don't know. You tell me.
2.
3.
4. Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting (I like to think)

4 Things I'd like to do before I die
1. Skydive
2. Live in Vancouver again
3. Live outside of North America
4. Skydive again

4 People I tag
1. I don't actually like these things, so I'm not tagging anyone. But go ahead and do it if you want to.