One day at a time

Day 43: Up, Mama

If I thought it was interesting and busy when we had the baby home on Easter Monday, it was nothing compared to today.

At least her siblings had no schoolwork and were on-hand to help with diapers, feeding and – most importantly – entertaining back during their Easter break.

Today, because I was covering the Town council meeting in the afternoon, Kevin was working late and nobody else could pick Jordan up from day home, she stayed with us for the day.

But this time, there was a school schedule, and Mom had calls to make to get one last story put together in the morning before the council meeting. She did pretty well at playing around us, and even accompanied Christian for a walk around the pond during his morning recess break.

Some of my interviews had a crying child in the background when she fell down running across the room or decided she really needed to get into the recycling bin and was mad when Alyssa removed her. Her older siblings are pretty good at taking her to a different room to cry it out, but that sound pulls at Mom’s heartstrings while she’s focusing on other people.

Luckily, she tends to get over it fairly quickly, especially if she’s distracted – one glimpse of an orb of any kind and she will choke back the tears to call out, “Ball!”

There were a lot of interruptions for me and big brother to read her coveted board books – Jordan can’t get enough of Goodnight Moon and Dino Bites.

Of course, she’s a typical one-year-old, so there’s been a lot of “Hey, get out of there,” “No,” “Put that down” and “What do you have?”

I’m choosing to consider those moments a blessing today, because she forced me to get up from my chair every few minutes rather than sitting for an hour or two straight as can often happen on a deadline Monday.

More than once, while writing or on the phone, I felt her tiny little fingers find my leg, and looked down to find her big eyes staring up at me, almost pleading, as she reached upward and said in her best one-year-old voice, “Up, Mama.”

She rarely says my name – this girl is all about Daddy; she learned his name very quickly and then proceeded to use it universally for several weeks, and just recently really started saying “Mama.” So when she used it to beg for me to pick her up, I couldn’t resist.

I did a lot of my morning’s work with a little one on my lap.

It’s not the first time – Brent Calver once took a photo of me editing a page of The Weal at SAIT back when we were in journalism school together, with Hannah (then about six months old) on my lap, helping me pore over the page.

Very different circumstances, but I’m no stranger to multi-tasking with a child on my hip – or lap.

Eventually she wanted to get down, and that’s when the trouble began. She was getting tired, but it wasn’t quite lunch and nap time yet, so we resorted to another of her favourites – The Wiggles – to get us through the last half hour or so.

It worked, and bought me enough time to finish writing my story and prep our lunch. That little girl can watch and dance with The Wiggles for hours – she even does the actions along with their music, and it’s more entertaining for us than for her.

Having the baby home for the day may have been a little more work, but it was also refreshing. We wouldn’t trade those little story time interruptions for the world.

But I’m sure glad she’ll be back to her day home tomorrow.

Krista Conrad, OkotoksToday.ca

COVID-19 UPDATE: Follow our COVID-19 special section for the latest local and national news on the coronavirus pandemic, as well as resources, FAQs and more.