It’s 8am Sunday morning. Molli’s asleep. Trine’s asleep. Ollie’s asleep. Clara’s roaming the apartment snorting her usual hideous indignation.
Molli’s lying in her pram behind me. Her face is angelic.
Last night wasn’t as rough for me as the night before, but Trine had a very hard time of it. We only overlapped for a few moments this morning, so I still don’t have the full report—I was lucky enough to sleep with only minor interruptions from about one o’clock until seven.
I made my first big Stupid Paternal Error yesterday. I’d wanted to take a picture of Molli that gave a very clear sense of her size, so I decided I’d lay out a measuring tape alongside the changing table pad. I figured next time I changed Molli I’d just snap a quick pic and it would include the tape measure for visual reference in the photograph. Very clever.
Have I mentioned how grabby Molli is? I was going to say that she seems to be an unusually gifted grabber for someone of her tender age, but I have no idea what sort of grabbing competence is expected at this point. She’s a good grabber. She’s always seizing the various laces and strings that flutter within grabbing distance of her hands during a diaper change. She likes to grab onto her clothing in ways that make it very difficult to remove (and I’m telling her, hold that thought into your teens!—but cut daddy some slack now).
Anyway, the next time I went to change Molli she reached out with one grabby hand and clutched the measuring tape. Were you picturing a long, cloth ribbon marked at regular intervals with inches or centimeters? Sorry. Picture the metal kind that rolls itself back up.
Molli tweaked the tape just enough to loosen its free end, which caused the box end to suck the tape back into itself, which it did so violently that the box itself went clattering to the bathroom floor. The whole thing took less than a second, but it was loud and violent and surprising.
Molli just about had a heart attack. (So did I.) She cried and shook. She shivered. I’m only grateful the metal tape didn’t cut her as it slid by her at twenty yards per second. I’m sure I’ve traumatized her in twelve different ways—and myself in nearly half as many. So as she gets older and you begin to notice her aversion to measuring instruments, you’ll know who to blame.
Oh… she’s waking up… Before I forget: We didn’t take so many pictures yesterday, but Ditte and Michael came by and helped us get a family picture (not very flattering of us, but we’d hardly slept and hadn’t showered or anything, so forgive us):
