Packing Books

I woke up this morning because Aish was whining at the bedroom door.

I let her in, and all of Mal's craziness broke loose. I have a sneaky suspicion that Laura was keeping him barely reined in up until that point.

I planned to get up and join them, but she insisted that I needed to snuggle with Aish for a while.

I pick my battles. I wasn't about to argue about this one.

But eventually I made the bed around Aish and joined them. It was a pretty relaxed morning for us, really. I went back later and noticed that our quilt was in shambles and pretended to care. Laura told me that Mal does this to her at least a dozen times a day.

I blame Rudy. I can't believe she'd say such an awful thing about our child.

He has my genes. How could he possibly be difficult?

There's an Indian restaurant in the vicinity that I've been meaning to check out. So we made a tentative lunch date before they left for church.

Unfortunately for those plans, I was starving. And running really low on caffeine.

(Laura bought me a new coffee pot that's supposed to just make the stuff every morning. I'm not sure what went wrong with it this morning).

So I went to breakfast at Jim's. I sat at the bar next to a woman who really wanted to chat. I should have been social and charming, but I just didn't have it in me. Being married has rubbed off a lot of my rough edges, but I'm still convinced that Sunday's my day to relax and recharge.

About a third of the way through that meal, I started thinking that I should stop so I'd have room for lunch.

But then the waitress finally showed up with my first coffee refill. I asked for a to-go box then, but they were super-busy.

Somewhere about that time, Laura sent me a message that friends from church were bring us boxes.

I got serious about leaving then.

But not serious enough. I got home and found the boxes waiting for me. I was kicking them in the door when Laura sent me a text that they'd just ditched them there because no one answered the door.

Oops.

I kicked them into the middle of the living room, chugged my to-go coffee, put the rest of my breakfast into the fridge, and headed to my hot lunch date.

The food was great. The company was better.

Mal ran around like a crazy person, but no one seemed to care.

My perspective may be totally skewed here. I didn't spend any time at all chasing him around, since I'm doing my best to stay off my feet right now.

I got home and had a major case of "full belly, time to sleep." I managed to stay awake for a couple of hours, but then I had to collapse for a nap.

I warned Laura that it was coming, and I think she felt a little bitter about it. I wish Mal would let her take one even once in a while. I really do try to keep him contained to let her have some space, but I don't know how she manages.

Anyway. I woke up, and she was packing.

So I decided to pitch in. Since I'm helpful, and nurturing, and caring, and that kind of stuff. (Why are you laughing? I could be that way if there was something in it for me).

Actually, this reminds me of some random thoughts that popped into my brain while I was parking for my lunch date.

I remembered about a thousand other lunch dates I've been on with other people. And how they were all about control. And who was giving more. And just snarky stupid bullshit. Or the complete opposite of "You need clean socks for this trip? That's an interesting problem."

Have I ever mentioned how nice it is to *know* that your "better half" not only really is your better half, but is also on your side?

But I was writing about book packing.

This may be surprising to the people who know me, but I think there's a good chance that I have more books than Laura does.

I know. It's pretty tough to believe. But there's a pretty good chance it's true.

I woke up and packed a few boxes while Laura was doing the same. Then I decided I was done for a while, but she found one more box that I could pack.

I have two bookshelves in one corner of our bedroom that are just packed to the gills.

Each shelf has a back layer, front layer, and then a couple more layers stacked on top of both.

I think I got a significant portion of those books packed today. Maybe about 20%.

We have a recliner that sits in front of those books.

Mal enjoys running around that recliner.

I stacked book boxes up until he didn't have enough room to complete that circuit.

He was really upset about this.

So he crawled in, grabbed a book, crawled back out, and tossed that book into the last box that I was trying to pack.

He's trying to help! He is contributing!

I'm all snot-nosed and teary-eyed just thinking about it.

When we moved here, he was just annoying little blot who screamed for attention constantly.

Now he's trying to help.

He might wind up being just as much trouble, but he's making a conscious effort to be part of the solution.