The wife and I have a bit of cabin fever. Three straight weeks cooped up
\nin the house with a baby – no matter how cute that baby is – can
\ndo that to you. The four walls of my bedroom and the four walls of
\nmy living room are now intimately familiar. I’ve seen them again, again,
\nand again. They are there early in the morning, in the middle in the
\nafternoon, and in the very late hours of the day.
\nSure we’ve been to the doctor twice. We even visited Walmart
\nfor some baby supplies, Target for some diapers, and Target for some
\ndiapers (no, I’m not repeating myself) but none of those trips can
\nreally be considered a leisure activity (now a trip to Best Buy, that
\nwould be a leisure activity).<\/p>\n
The baby is doing great. Except for the occasional sleepless night,
\nhe’s fallen into a good pattern of eat, sleep, and repeat. For a
\ncouple hours each day, his eyes open and explore the world from
\nhis perch upon mommy or daddy. Mommy and daddy stay busy doing
\nwhat mommies and daddies do: feed him, change his diapers, take the
\nwell-deserved cat nap, and, best of all, stare back into the
\ncutest pair of eyes on earth. But mommy and daddy are ready
\nto take a break, if only for a few moments.<\/p>\n
The wife and I want to head out for a few hours and scarf down some grub,
\nleaving our child in someone’s very capable hands. We’ll have
\na nice little chat over a meal, see a couple of new walls for a
\nchange, and enjoy each other’s company without the restrictions
\nof our home. We haven’t yet decided where to eat because
\nthat isn’t really the tough decision. Where to eat is hardly
\nthe issue. This will be the first time we leave our child in the
\ncare of someone else – anyone else. The real question
\nis: which set of grandparents get to watch their grandson
\nfirst?<\/p>\n
This question cannot be taken lightly. Former presidents haven’t had
\nto balance the politics of a decision quite as delicate as this.
\nGrandparents on both sides of our now three person family are quite anxious
\nto watch over their new grandson without the supervision of their
\nnervous son or daughter.<\/p>\n
Our job, and it begins now, is to strike a good balance between
\nthe babysitting offers that have been tendered – from grandparents,
\naunts, uncles, and friends alike – and those we actually accept.
\nA healthy supply will
\nallow the wife and I to catch an emergency movie now and then.
\nStoking demand properly will keep everyone, particularly the
\ngrandparents, happy, where the balance between
\n“I never see my grandson” and
\n“You want to us to watch that hellion again?” is nervously thin.
\nBut who gets first dibs? Who sets the wheels in motion?<\/p>\n
The answer, in the end, should have been obvious. How could we not know who
\ndeserves it most? Isn’t it easy to see? How
\ncould our selection criteria have been any easier?<\/p>\n
That’s right. We are going to flip a coin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The wife and I have a bit of cabin fever. Three straight weeks cooped up in the house with a baby – no matter how cute that baby is – can do that to you. The four walls of my bedroom and the four walls of my living room are now intimately familiar. I’ve seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}