Playin' Hooky

Blessed be the day care provider for taking off today for West Virginia, leaving me no other option than staying home with Clementine. As it turns out, I would have been off anyway as my boss turned to me this week in a particularly mind-numbing meeting to say, "You've had a rough go of it these last two weeks. Why don't you take Friday off to spend with your daughter." Did I say "Look at my calendar, bozo, I'm already outta here?" No way! A simple, "Well, if you insist" will suffice.

So here it is 9:30 a.m. after a miserable night's sleep (she snuffled like a woodland creature seeking out food all night long when she wasn't shrieking) and we've already had a wonderful time. The best part about it is that all the mistakes are mine today--she won't see a lick of TV, not even the "educational shows" that Julie justifies at day care, but I can't guarantee she won't hear the word "fuck"thousand times if we go anywhere in the car. Hooray for parenting. We tried some new foods for breakfast, but my little gal wouldn't even look at a scrambled egg and totally turned her nose up at peanut better. If I hadn't watched her emerge from own body, I would doubt she was my child on that alone. Peanut butter is my stranded-on-a-desert-island food, my comfort food, my go-to food, and I can't imagine my life without it. Sure, it means I've probably exposed her to allergies and will spend my whole life rabidly avoiding foods with traces of peanuts so she doesn't blow up like a balloon, but I love me some PB.

We've also already had a jammin' dance party downstairs. She picked out her record du jour, The Pretenders, and we did a host of dancing, including the Flashdance stutter step, some general body jerking, a cool head roll that looks a little like she's trying to learn to break dance and then some couples dancing, which involves her trying to throw herself out of my arms for a dip or a lift. She grabbed the maraca, gave me a tambourine and then we shook it with all we've got. I think this means no gym necessary today.

But what is necessary? I have one inclination to fill the day up doing all the stuff we never can together. It's too yucky for finding a good park now, but we can touch every single toy in the house before too long (even the annoying plastic ones), maybe go to Ikea to get some bookshelves, poke around the Book Beat for some new reads..who knows. At some point I guess she will be tired of me staring at her and petting her hair, so we'll have to find an adventure after napping. Oh, sweet napping. I've spent that time a thousand times over already--I will read, read, read, I will write to Dr. S about the sheath of poems she sent me so long ago, I will clean my office, I will write, I will blog, I will not check my work email, I will not preen in the mirror, staring at my tattoo for hours. Surely Clementine cannot sleep for the thousand lives I want to live during nap today.

A girl could get used to this, especially when she's had a week where she feels like her job is eating her soul and that she doesn't see her kid enough. I'm resisting the urge to whine, the existential crisis that comes over me in cycles now, but I love being home--not just to be with Clementine. I feel like my brain got turned back on this morning when, instead of getting in my car and autopiloting to work, I looked at a whole, blank day, just me and my daughter and started wondering how we could spend it. Free will!

OK, she's using the optical mouse as a telephone, crying "Hi! Hi!" into again and again. I'm off for something a little more imaginative.