Saturdays with Shane

Every Saturday, Carrie goes off to work and I suit up to play stay-at-home Dad. Today is no different. Shane and I play until I'm dead tired or he drops off to sleep and then I split my time between chores and some R&R.  Since it's a three-day weekend (followed up with my birthday!) I've decided to skip out on the usual laundry and I've watched some Castle and played some Starcraft 2 instead. At the moment, Shane is zonked out less than five feet from where I sit typing this.

I'm always amazed at how hard Shane sleeps. I can bang around working on dishes, meddle with the washer and dryer and crank up the volume on the TV or my computer and he pays it no notice. If the phone rings, I answer it. He just keeps on sleeping. The kid used to really scare me on car rides. He still does!  Sometimes Shane will fall asleep and lull his head forward in his car seat. It looks hugely uncomfortable and I imagine it could cut off a kid's air supply or at least give him one hell of a crick in the neck. To top it off, Shane goes completely unresponsive.  I can call out his name, drop the windows, and crank the music and he'll just snore away. Plan B is I reach back to rub his hair and gently poke him some. Shane still won't respond.  It's on to Plan C. I put my hand on his chest or under his nose to feel that he's breathing while keeping my eyes on the road. As long as he's breathing (and he has never not been) I keep on driving and gently prop his head up or pull down on his car seat some to make his head lull back against it. When I was a newer parent, there were times I almost pulled over on the shoulder to check on him, but now I'm a little less paranoid (but only a little).  Whenever Shane crosses his eyes or makes a funny noise, I run to Dr. Google or Baby411 to see what's what. I love this kid. He's a lot of work, but he's my son! That's the way it's supposed to be. I am looking forward to when he can entertain himself a little more and when he can start running around so we can play outside together.

It's been a busy week in Shane's father's life. SOL tests have been going on all week and Jama had a mini-stroke. I stayed late a couple of days this week working on my damned VGLA binders. I'm going to out of my way to find a good cigar to celebrate the death of that assessment when it passes (next year! WOO!). I'd write more, but then I would probably never want to re-read this post ever again. I think I'm just going to bury the memories and crank them out years and years from now in sentences that begin with "You think this is tough? Back in the day..." I'm just thrilled school is winding down. I'm ready for a new year and a fresh start. Plus, this summer has ESY waiting for me and my new tutoring job. More on those in a later post!

The boy is awake and looking up at me. That's the signal to stop blogging!