What is it about parents that, no matter what age we are, or what level of the game of life we believe ourselves to have unlocked, their presence causes us to instantly revert to whatever age at which we were our worst.
For me, the worst age was… well, anywhere between 11 and 24, honestly, where I was that potent combination of precocious and incredibly self-conscious, rendering me touchy and defensive, with a penchant for making spectacularly inappropriate jokes at spectacularly inappropriate times.
It’s not a great look, honestly.
Anyway, I’m glad they’re here! I miss them so much and wish America didn’t make it so hard for people to just move here if they wanted to, because I’m positive we could convince them, but I’m less sure they’d survive the ordeal USCIS would put them through for the privilege.
Monday
The book juggernaut (the book-ernaut?) rolls on apace. The thing about getting really positive feedback, I’ve discovered – and I am so grateful, and amazed, and delighted, that This is Not About You is getting such an incredible response – is that it doesn’t do anything to calm the butterflies in your stomach going ker-azy at the thoughts that the next message, or review, you read could be the truly terrible one that sends you into a doom spiral.
It could happen any time!
So far, the worst anyone’s said is “Brutal. The author is painful” and given the book one star – a single star! – which honestly feels vindictive and not particularly thoughtfully awarded. I mean, maybe their rating system is different to mine, but as far as I’m concerned only a truly wretched book, maybe one in which not a single sentence was grammatically correct and which ends in the middle of one of those badly written sentences, would warrant a one-star rating.
So I’m choosing to conclude that the person in question simply doesn’t like me, and so it is a bad faith review, which is annoying but… I mean, it happens, right?!
Anyway, you can take it as a given that a large proportion – I’d say 60, maybe 70% – of my brain power this week is taken up with thinking about TINAY, responding to messages about TINAY, reading good reviews of TINAY and worrying about potential bad reviews of TINAY. It’s exhausting.
Otherwise, today I’m hanging out with Atlas, and while, when I went to bed last night, I had big plans for what our day would entail – a trip to the library, dropping some things off at Goodwill, God knows what else! – I wake up feeling exhausted (he was up four times last night, cheers buddy) and grumpy and entirely unmotivated to leave the house.
But this baby is full of beans, so we do, in fact, head to the library downtown, which has an adorable kids’ area full of adorable toddlers and their (probably also exhausted and entirely unmotivated) parents (mostly mothers).
We spend an hour or so there, wherein Atlas runs around delightedly and wears himself out with unintelligible shouting, then we go home about 10 minutes too late, meaning he kicks and writhes and screams as I attempt to put him in the car. I should’ve recognised the signs earlier…
Parking at the library car park is free (as, obviously, is entry to the library).
When we get home, I put him down for his nap and, despite having plans to do a Peloton during his nap time (lol), order myself a Taj Mahal ($37.44) on DoorDash and do a little work while I wait for it to arrive.
He wakes up at around 2.30pm and we potter around the garden for a while, play with his Cory Carson toys for another while, then, when Brandin and the boys get home, he takes over parenting duties and I head upstairs to work on a freelance commission that’s due tomorrow. (I am, in general, a very last-minute person but in this case it’s something that has to be done at the very last minute so the information is fresh. I swear!)
Daily total: $37.44
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Anchor Baby to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.