Several months ago (wow, it's embarrassing to admit that it's been
that long), our microwave stopped working properly. It didn't stop
working...not all the time, at least...but it began to display a
troubling pattern of sporadic non-functioning. Sometimes, it would run
for a few seconds, then just shut off. Other times, it would keep
running, but it would beep continuously, sometimes even past the moment
when we frantically yanked the plug from the wall. From time to time, it
would not actually do much in the way of heating up food, but it would
continue to make noise and produce light for as long as the timer was
set. Several other permutations of non-working developed, but as long as
we verbally and aggressively threatened to replace it, the microwave
mostly did its job, even if it took half a dozen tries to partially heat
a muffin. Then, I made a terrifying discovery.
The
microwave will work perfectly - and I mean perfectly: the expected
amount of heat is produced in the anticipated amount of time, with the
stop and start buttons functioning correctly - as long as we punch in
the time six minutes and sixty-six seconds. I tried it out on a whim,
and was strangely unsurprised when it worked. This bastardly microwave
has seemed to be taunting us for months, intermittently operating as a
microwave should and refusing to do anything but beep incessantly. Jerk
microwave. We've started heating up your food in that sucker, and even
still...even with you squirming in your chair and furiously pounding
your fat little fists on your tray...we haven't gotten a new one. Why,
you might wonder, do we keep an essentially non-functional appliance on
hand that may actually be possessed by some demonic presence when $45.00
and twenty minutes of our time would easily provide us with something
new, usable, and...well, not possessed by some demonic presence.
Simple.
We just don't give enough of a crap. Hudson, when you almost never get
more than three hours of sleep at a time (and when three hours is a
luxuriously long stretch of time to sleep), then you either spend eight
hours by yourself chasing an increasingly mobile and energetic
not-quite-yet-toddler - or work an eight hour day then come home to said
not-yet-toddler and a cranky, overtired spouse, THEN you can decide how
much of a crap it is worth caring about a microwave that usually does
close to nothing when there is any alternative to replacing it (even if
that alternative is "suck it up and eat it cold"). The desired amount,
you will find, is not a lot.
You have just exploded in
the last few weeks. Your hair started growing in tufty, wavy tendrils
around over ears. Every now and then, I catch you turning your hands
over and over and studying the movement of your chubby fingers. You can
more or less crawl backwards, and smoothly transition from sitting to
scooting and back to sitting again, though I'm not sure if you are quite
aware that crawling is something that can move you forwards, too. You
can stand leaning on a table or chair or person, or holding someone's
hands, and bounce in place with furious strength. We were scared for a
few weeks that you weren't interested in solid food at all, but then we
realized that you were just sick of us feeding you; you want to do it
yourself, and when you do, you'll eat pretty much whatever we put in
front of you. You can pick up tiny puffs and beans and pop them into
your mouth, and at least 60% of what goes in there stays in. You babble
the most confident, assertive sounds that have ever not been words, and I
had a dream last night about you suddenly speaking; I don't remember
what you said in the dream, but I know it was two words together, and I
almost cried I was so happy to hear them.
The fact that
you are stomping, scootching, rambling, and yowling your way towards
words is a source of no small amazement to me. Completely barring the
gross reality that you nearly didn't make it to a point where you were
making sounds, it still catches me off-guard that you are so rapidly and
obviously growing into a little person. It clearly takes a lot of your energy, and I hate to admit it drains a great deal of mine. There are days when we go out and do nothing but go to the grocery store, and I am too tired
to even return phone calls; even on the best days, your Dad and I end up
in puddles on the couch. We can justify the effort it takes to go out
for a meal, a drink, a snack, or even a walk when it has a tangible
result. We ate! We drank! We felt more sane! You were happily occupied
for any length of time! Result! Shopping trips have become somewhat
trickier to justify, as you can't yet move yourself around as much as
you want to, so you occasionally get antsy...or alternately, you require
us to dance and leap around like crazy people in places where dancing
and leaping are generally not done. Like the underwear section at
Target. Or the dairy section at the grocery store. Or standing at any
intersection waiting for a walk signal.
Buying a microwave, aside from being a logistical challenge for one person attempting it alone
and an excruciatingly boring way to spend time together as a family, is
just not worth the time it would take. I would rather stare off into
space, glassy-eyed, for forty minutes while you nap than take that time
to run to Target and buy a microwave that is not fueled by some demonic
presence. Sometimes you don't give us a choice, and we have to spend potential shopping time
letting you hurl plastic cups across the floor, or hover with a hand
behind your butt as you bounce gleefully in place standing next to the
window. Satan may have possessed our microwave, but you have utterly, unconditionally commandeered our time.
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