According to the official Blaugust schedule this week is ‘Introduce Yourself Week’, and according to my Blaugust plan Mondays are the day that I should try and adhere to that theme, but I’ve got no sensible idea of how I might ‘introduce’ myself to both the tiny little regular readership of the Leaflocker1 and to the Blaugust community at large2 without repeating myself more than I’d prefer. I’ve thus resolved to give a bit of a run-down of what a regular week looks like as I settle into the routine of being a full-time dad back home in Australia, in the hopes that everyone will find some new little nugget of detail but any new folks who accidentally wander in won’t be scared off or put to sleep too quickly. This is the sort of post that really would have been improved by pictures, but I've done a terrible job of planning ahead this week so instead it’s going to be a little sparse.
On Monday the eight-month-old Olwet and I strap ourselves into the pram and wander for quarter of an hour or so down the path by our local creek to our local baby and toddler singing group, which entertains us for three-quarters of an hour or so before crucially ending with morning tea for us both (the sprog has just started eating a rice cracker or two while I scarf down as much cake as I can without drawing attention to myself). The lad is still a little small to have any idea what’s going on with the rest of the structured activities, but he still enjoys bopping up and down on the spot and watching the larger kids running around while I enjoy a sympathetic chat to the other exhausted looking parents and grandparents, so it works. We then wander back up the hill to home, and after all that exercise are generally both pretty up for a bit of a nap and to spend the rest of the day playing together in a more reserved and quiet way as we both recharge our introvert batteries. If I’ve got any hope of getting any actual reading done during the week, it’s on Monday afternoons, but these days any hope of labelling myself as a reader is largely aspirational, and I’m just as likely to spend it trying to sneak a little gaming in while hoping that the little one will entertain himself next to me. He does go to sleep relatively early in the evenings, around 7PM, so the time between then and falling into bed is a good chance to prepare for the next day, or in the case of Blaugust, to blog like my life depends on it.
Once a month of Tuesdays we walk the same path down to our Church for the mid-week service, which is a more old-school service that caters mostly to the over-70 crowd rather than the more diverse Sunday morning congregation. This suits us fine, as the small one enjoys the full doting attention of a room full of grannies and I enjoy a chance to open up the register and sing a few of the good old hymns that have totally disappeared from the weekend repertoire, even if belting one out in the confines of my cloth mask is a sensation that leaves a little to be desired. On weeks when that’s not on, I generally spend a lot of time wishing it were and singing hymns at him anyway, but it’s just not the same. Tuesday afternoons are often a good time for grandparents or other visitors, so the kettle generally gets even more of a workout than the pressure it’s already under trying to sustain two caffeine addicts who don’t get full nights of sleep3. While his mother puts the boy to bed in the evening, I disappear down to my desk set-up in the corner of the downstairs living room to join in on the Australian Riichi Mahjong Association’s weekly club night on discord and get a game or two, in which I will desperately try (and generally fail) to play well enough that no-one comments on my play, while fully participating in as much of the good-natured trash-talk as I can manage.
Wednesday mornings are generally slow. We make good use of the little swing on the deck or spend a little time in the garden, and generally if I’m going to introduce a new activity into the mix (a necessity as the Owlet has a very limited attention span and regularly craves new things to poke his little nose into) this will be the time that I do it. This week’s new addition was bringing out the rocking cow (it’s like a stuffed rocking horse but bovine) that I picked up from my local Buy Nothing facebook group. Wednesday afternoons are a visiting time as well, as we hop in the car and go to find someone else to play with, but all that driving means that we have lots of little naps, so going to sleep on Wednesday nights is often a little fraught. By this time in the week Mrs. Owl and I generally start to feel like we haven’t seen enough of each other, so we’ll often close out the night snuggled up watching a film or doing the crossword together just to try and remember what life was like before all the screaming started happening wherever we went, before another night of taking turns comforting the source of those noises.
On Thursdays Mrs. Owl takes the progeny off to her parent’s house for the morning, where they look after him while she looks herself away and tries to get some work done, usually with limited success. After what is always a much-needed slow start, I have an opportunity to catch up on as much of the cleaning and household chores that we’ve let slip for the rest of the week as I can before the house is invaded and the uncleaning begins all over again. Thursday nights are often a big cook-up, as that’s the night that we have friends come over for a meal, a board or tile game or two, and copious amounts of tea, so it’s very much the day that the whole week pivots around, but also very much a day that just couldn’t happen without the little period of calm beforehand. Thankfully, the Owlet enjoys sitting in his chair and watching his parents cook or do dishes, or do anything with lots of moving parts, so he’s relatively easy to entertain.
Fridays are often the day for a big walk. I pack the little bundle of joy into the stroller or the chest carrier and pick a one to three hour wander through the local countryside to enjoy together, often punctuated by a coffee and a pastry to satisfy my sweet tooth somewhere along the way. The Owlet loves to sit and watch the trees blowing in the wind or the water rushing in the creek or the dogs that are also out for a walk, so this is often a restful and cheerful time together even as I walk up a sweat trying to get the pusher into places it’s not properly designed to go. On a good week mum has finished her work by the time we get home and we can spend the afternoon as a family, but if that doesn’t work out it’s generally another quiet one with an early dinner before we head off to the bible study group where I’m pretty sure I’m setting a record for chronic non-attendance.
I don’t think there’s a typical Saturday. Saturdays aren’t a day for planning, they’re just a day that happens, hence my very lackadaisical approach to whether or not I’m going to get a blog out during them. Finding ways to keep all three of us entertained is a bit of a challenge, but as the boy grows and can do more I’m confident that this time will fill up and we’ll be wishing for the simpler days when all he could do was sit about wiggling and babbling incoherently.
And on Sundays we’re off to church as a family, where we sit at the back all to often on tenterhooks, either ready to escape to somewhere where we won’t disturb the whole place when the lad explodes, or to rescue him from surprising bursts of loud noises like spontaneous applause or drums. One or other of us inevitably ends up missing a decent portion of the service while changing a nappy or trying to rock him to sleep, but that just means that the other ones has to make sure that they’re paying attention so that they can report back on anything important later. If we play our cards right someone will invite us out to lunch afterwards. We’d love to be those people that invite other people, but usually by this stage of the week the house is a biohazard zone again so it isn’t often that it works out that way around. Then it’s another good night for spending time together as we check in on all the things that we’ve forgotten to do, and it’s time to begin the week all over again.
Well, that was a long-winded way of saying ‘I have a lot of time on my hands and would absolutely be up for catching up for a cuppa while you entertain my child’ wasn’t it? Reading it back, it sounds like I’m not enjoying life at the moment, but for all that it’s exhausting, that couldn’t be further from the truth, as I’m pretty sure this is what I’ve been training for my whole life.
Many of whom are related to me
Many of whom have done this with me for the better part of a decade
I have a spare in the shed just in case this one gives up on us at a critical moment