Harvard here we come

The last 24 hours were filled with firsts. Fletcher’s first laughter, first recognition of the 92 lb. yellow Labrador patrolling the house, and of course, his first whole night of sleep! That last one had me vexed at 4:45am, when I awoke to the sound of nothing. (Nothing other than track 3 of the aforementioned Happiest Baby on the Block CD, that is.)

Through the haze of emergent consciousness, I struggled to remember if I had previously changed a diaper that evening. I looked over at Jen, sound asleep, of course. Yeah, right, not a chance she did it. In case you are wondering, diaper changin’ is “man’s work” once the sun is set. So, I burst out of bed, ran (OK, so I did not run, I ambled) out of the bedroom to check on The Boy. Is it little chest rising and falling? How did he get so big? He was so small when he brought him home, what was that, just 7 short weeks ago. Time flies. Before too long, he is going to be talking back, and not long thereafter begging for the keys to the car. Shape up, young man. I will be taking notes during the Terrible Twos: earn enough demerits and you will get the key to the Hyundai, not the Audi.

But I digress. Yes, Fletcher was breathing just fine. I debated changing his diaper and feeding him (and, by feeding him, I mean, waking up The Mommy Unit), but decided he was likely to awake on his own soon, and if not, it could not hurt to see if he could sleep the whole night. Just to see. So I let him sleep more. I began to toss and turn around 6am, racking myself with worry about how my otherwise seemingly insignificant decision, taken in the wee hours of this day, might someday play itself out in his not making 1^st string varsity, or mean the difference between Stanford and Harvard, because let’s face it, no son of mine is going to go to some Left Coast Wannabe Ivy School. At 7am, I decided enough was enough. His Harvard application in jeopardy, I picked The Boy up and took him for a diaper change.

As he worked through the cobwebs of emergent consciousness, Fletcher grabbed his bearings and, upon realizing who it was exactly slathering butt paste on his bottom, let out the biggest grin and squealed at his pappa. Not a bad way to start a day. Not bad at all.