Livin' with the parents...

I came into the baby’s room the other day to find that mom had put a giant comforter over the entirety of the crib because Gracie keeps scooting out from underneath her little pink blanket and mom was worried that she was “cold.” Sleep sack, mom! And I’m all, “but she might suffocate!” and Mom’s all, “She won’t. You kids never got SIDS, my mom’s kids (there were 14) never had SIDS, she’ll be fine.” But she MIGHT NOT BE, MOM. The nice thing is that when I do say, “Well, that makes me uncomfortable, I need you to let me be a first time mom on this one,” she smiles, pats me on the head and says, “Okay, Jess” while thinking about how there were a lot less parenting rules when she was my age.

Mom likes to stay up really late at night. She’s a night owl, like I would be if I didn’t have to work and didn’t have a baby now. I love staying up late and sleeping in! So the printer will go off at random hours like 11 p.m. And mom comes clattering down the stairs to make copies and something crashes to the ground and I roll over in bed like, “whaaa…?”

Or when she wants to put things away! And I’ve said, “Night, mom, going to bed,” and I’m lying in bed reading and starting to doze off, and suddenly she’s traipsing down the stairs, turning on lights (because she can’t see!) to put things away in the closets in the basement right next to my bed (which are a communal space).

Also, everything sounds loud and echoey in my basement room. Let’s not leave dad out here, like at 4 a.m. when biking shoes are clomping across the kitchen floor (right above my bed) and it sounds like he’s rearranging the entire upstairs furniture. Or if I’m trying to take an afternoon nap, it’s usually my nephews storming through the house playing cars, knocking things over and I’m like, “OK. Never mind. I’m not tired.”

That was the roast; here are the nice things:

I help mom cook a lot and she never fails to say how much she’ll miss me when I go back to work. 

Whenever I’m trying to leave the house with the baby, Mom’s always there to help, making sure I have a bottle and burp clothes as I’m putting the baby in the car.

My nice pea coat had holes in both pockets and in the lining, and Mom spent a couple of hours one evening sewing them up.

Whenever I have something to hang, even though I can operate a hammer, Dad takes the projects on, pulls out his tools, and makes it look just right on the wall. :)

Dad will come home some evenings, wordlessly pick Gracie up, and carry her around the house for an hour or two. The best sight in the world.

There have been many times when I've been up with Gracie in the night, that I hear her wake up in the morning and, groaning, I roll out of bed... only to hear mom gently close my bedroom door and go to get the baby up. My parents are the best.