Little Harry's House

May 27, 2010
A TEETHING BABY, AN ESCAPEE CAT, AND A MISCHIEVOUS DOG

While Dan is away, Harry will play...up!

… and so will the cat and the dog.

This week any nostalgic thought I was clinging to about being the baby of my family has been thrown like a dead weight off the roof. My responsibility as a parent now lies splattered on the front porch, unavoidable to anyone who comes to my house and has to step over the mess as they enter the front door, and my god is there mess...and noise!

Harry is teething, the dog is escaping, and the cat is trying to. I tell myself 'I can do this'.

When did I grow up?

I feel like one minute I am begging to go to Kim Harrison's high school party, the next I am chasing my cat through neighbouring yards at night wearing little more than a nightgown and oversized male slippers.

My cat has just discovered if she twists this way and throws her body that way she can clumsily mush her body through the verandah slats, making me look like a crazy woman as I pace the elderly neighbour's yard at night trying to catch her without setting off the sensor lights and sending the poor woman into cardiac arrest. Why couldn't she have figured this out before Dan went away?

I repeat my affirmation; 'I can do this'.

I try to hang the washing out this morning and the dog escapes. I change out of my nightgown this time, load a screaming grumpy Harry into the car and prepare to go looking for him. As I turn from my unimpressed baby, who should be lying panting at my feet? The dog.

'I can do this'.

Harry has developed a cry that sounds like an old man who has smoked most his life, and he has a face to go with it (a sad face that is, not an old man's face, that would just be weird). He has begun to jut out a trembling bottom lip and let a few tears trickle down his fat baby cheeks. It is his prelude to the agonising baby screams. It gets me every time.

Waking 2 to 3 times a night to his pained cries, and with no-one else here, I can't help but think I. AM. IT. It's a pretty sobering thought.

Then in the middle of all this chaos the cat curls up on my chest and purrs. The dog greets me with a big old sloppy kiss from beside the bed. Harry with his little red face and pouting lip looks up at me, and with baby tears still rolling over his flushed cheeks he pauses for a second, and gives me an ear to ear smile.

I realise then that a second is all it takes. A second is all it takes to know I can do this!

At least for 2 more nights...