This weekend will be Kim's first Mother's Day.

Okay wiseguy, not her first one ever, but her first as a mother.

Regardless, I took yesterday off to help out with running to the doctor's office, both for Kim and for Harry, and got to spend the entire day with both of them. I would like to publicly acknowledge a new-found understanding of how hard it must be to be at home all day, every day, with a newborn.

A few examples...

First order of the day was Harry's 2-week checkup and HepB immunization. Nothing too dramatic here, as the past times I've gone to the pediatrician office, it's been the 2 of us and things have gone well. This time, Harry seems to have discovered his new talent of impersonating a garden sprinkler (a very convincing one at that), but beyond that uneventful. Everything checked out as normal.

After a quick run back home for a bit, we headed back out for Kim's appointment. Rather than head all the way back home, Harry and I decided to swing through REI, and try to get a few things at Target. May I offer that I would much rather deal with the morning/afternoon DC commute and the associated tourists buses than the lunchtime stay-at-home crowd. Around here, they seem to be consumed by themselves and their purposes so much so that one woman even had it plastered on her bumper... IT'S ALL ABOUT ME. Whatever lady... learn how to drive.

So we finally get to Target. Lots of grins and pointing at Harry's perch on my chest (credit: Baby Bjorn), to the extent that I thought something was wrong, but then remembered he's a newborn and old ladies like babies. After many repeated laps, we find most of the items we're looking for, or at least acceptable substitutes, and make our way back to pick Kim up.

The return trip is much quicker, until we get to the schmucks making a very lame attempt to direct traffic around the construction happening in the parking lot we're trying to enter. This consumes at least 10 minutes of what turns into a 20 minute trip. Ah well... back home for a walk.

Bailey's ready, and we head out. My frustrations with the day so far are clearly annoying the hell out of Kim, and we cut this walk short. She of course deals with this every day, and to up the ante, does it on her own. Back home to try to relax a bit, and enjoy each other's company.

To top it off, it's a gorgeous day outside, and we both fell that we need to get back out of the house, and enjoy it while it's there. Everyone (including Bailey this time) back in the car to head to Old Town for another walk.

Much better this time. I chalk it up to the evening commute folks and VA tourists being easier to deal with than the ME-FIRST homebodies from earlier in the afternoon. Great walk around town to sufficiently tire out everyone. Made for a significantly calmer evening.

Harry finally drifted off to sleep around the time we were watching the anti-climactic Friends finale. He woke up on time for his 9:30 feeding, but then proceeded to sleep through until his 4am. Some quick math puts that at about a 6-hour sleep. Not quite the entire night, but the closest we've had so far. BTW, yesterday was his 2-week birthday... not too shabby. Hope it lasts.

So with Kim's first mother's day right around the corner, I now have a much deeper understanding of the level of energy and emotional involvement that is consumed by her day-to-day. Luck me, I get to go to work for the day, and come home later. I guess I never really got all of that.

And I'm guessing that was an easy day.