Saline and Other Reasons Why Children Need Two Parents

Nothing like a newborn to restore my utter amazement at single parents. I bow down to all of you 'cause there is no way in hell I could handle this parenting/caretaker gig all by myself.

My little Meatball has a stuffy nose. Actually, all males in this house seem to have some sort of hay fever. And because the pediatric gods have spoken and cold medicine is no longer appropriate for children until they can vote or something like that, we've been shooting saline up his nose. A practice he totally loves, by the way. Over the weekend, the Hubby would hold Meatball, sideways over the sink as directed, with his little hands trapped and head immobile while I shot the stuff up his nose. I tried doing this recently on my own. Holding baby sideways over sink? Check. Arms trapped? Check. Head immobilized? Shit, where is that extra arm when I need it? What the hell, I'll stick it in his nostril and it will be fine. After all, he is looking at me and cooing right now like a little angel. Insert in nostril - success! More cooing. Spray saline. WOOPS! Angelic, still baby replaced with screaming, squirming baby and saline sprays pretty much everywhere except for up intended nostril. Wipe saline off baby and start process over.

Really, it's all about man-on-man defense. Two children and two parents. Mom's breast feeding one? That's okay, dad can go play pirates kill dinosaurs in dragon land while Transformers blow it up with 5 year old. It is totally okay if the baby takes a gigantic crap that requires bathing while the older one is in the middle of homework because each has a parent to tend to his needs. Of course Daddy can read you a story while I rock this screaming, over tired, over cranky baby to sleep for the sake of all humanity. As you can see, there is clearly a two child maximum in our house!

And naturally, sanity does play a factor. Sometimes it is completely necessary for Mommy to go have drinks with friends or wander around Target aimlessly at 8 p.m. while Daddy stays at home with the children. Or for Daddy to go do manly, let the steam out kinda stuff so as to avoid a heart attack while Mommy watches the children.

I want two more babies. I might need to look into that Sister Wives thing...