Moving

We needed a bigger house. M found it about a quarter mile away.

We've been gradually moving our stuff over the week. I am dead.

The Koala has been a great sport helping M pack boxes and making sure that the front door stays closed at all times even if I have a load of boxes to carry out. She'd make an excellent prison guard. M has been a champ with the packing. I've been loading and taking them to the new house. We got help from our friend the pack mule yesterday. This guy gave me the strength to carry all kinds of shit. Finny hopped into his arms to help out as well.

Both she and the dog seem to lavish and celebrate the abundance of space each time we are in the new house. The dog runs in circles like a crazy person in the garden. The Koala does the same thing in the new house, screaming.

I hope this ends soon. The movers are coming on Sunday to handle the big stuff. We ordered a fridge and a dishwasher today. We got a real fridge, not this bullshit postwar jobs that you have to defrost that they sell all over Europe. Our current one has a drain hole on the inside of the fridge. We got one WITHOUT IT.

Watch this video. You'll see what I'm talking about. You may notice he has an accent. Europe or where ever. They put holes in their fridges.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ7bee0ZcAM

I'll Never Know

At the drugstore just now, I saw a kid old enough to smoke in a stroller, reading a magazine and the mom looked near his age. Maybe they're cousins.

#mymotherismyyoungercousin

Bogeys

The Koala fell onto the Fatboy while running and the dog licked her face. She didn't like it, but she giggled a lot while pushing the dog's face away.

I watched it all and suddenly started bawling. Moo bawling.

I can't say why or what I felt because right now, all of the goodness has been sucked out of me. In my head, I keep a flask of vodka under my pillow so I was deeply disappointed to realize that I don't even have alcoholism to fall back on.

M and I spoke about something important last night. Some kind of central guiding principle to carry us through difficult moments. I forgot what it was. I could have used it today.

The Koala is going through some kind of growth spurt at the moment that is best described as the Total Bullshit For Everyone Phase. What it looks like on the outside: Koala is fixed on M, won't let her out of her sight, really insistent on breasts, knows in her sleep when the milk truck is thinking about getting up, makes a lot A LOT of angry pterodactyl sounds. From what M tells me, it's a milestone hump in which she begins to understand that M has her own life, sort of, and not just her slave. She's going to want to keep the slave as long as she can, but at some point realizes she might have to switch to a different plan, like, say, indentured servitude and then BAM! She's over the hump and building Teslas in the basement.

She hasn't slept well or long the last couple of days. Yesterday was as lovely as it was a hassle. This morning began at 6:20 when M's alarm went off. I prayed in my deepest of hearts for two things: 1) Tranquilizers in the breast milk. 2) The power to survive whatever the hell happens in the event there is no tranquilizer.

After about 10 minutes, Koala went down. And then she woke up. She looked at me, made angry Pterodactyl sound, dropped her head and closed her eyes. Repeated this roughly every ten minutes until 7:40 when it was go time, as in you better fucking take me to the milk truck or I'ma go apeshit right the fuck now.

Milk truck had to leave and I was numb. She left after maybe some breast feeding, then the Koala freaked out on me for a good hour at least. I just laid in bed and let her scream at me for being an incompetent fool or whatever endless chiding she had going on. M called and the Koala calmed down, waved at the phone, but as soon as the phone clicked, it was full steam ahead.

I got up the strength to get dressed for the cold windy nonsense outside, dress the nuclear alarm system, get the dog ready. After a series of false starts, we got out of the house. The Koala was calm in the stroller, but touchy all day. The dog peed, we went to the bakery, I got breakfast started, but moved very very carefully.

I put on some Harold Budd and Brian Eno. The Koala stopped breakfast to do some interpretive dance. It was a relatively peaceful breakfast. We headed out again to the park this time to exercise the dog. The Koala fell asleep relatively quickly in the stroller and I headed us home, but the path was rife with challenges to the sleep program. One dog who has it out for the Cos ran circles around the stroller barking at our dog. There were kids screaming and dribbling basketballs. Basketballs in Germany? Lots of bogeys on the path.

We got in without incident. I unfastened the dog's jingly collar, I left the baby in the stroller and planned to take the dog up first just in case something set her off and then suddenly, BOOGLEAGAGAGA CLINK CLINK sound from the downstairs neighbor and her custodian level keyring plus bags of fur. The dog barked an alarm sound, the neighbor shrieked, the baby woke up screaming.

I put her in the sling, but she didn't sleep and insisted on staying in the sling. She just cozied up in the thing while I swayed her around the house for about an hour listening to more Harold Budd and Brian Eno.

We picked up M at the train station after a while. M brought takeout, but was wise to eat something beforehand. The Koala immediately melted down when she saw M, we got home, M breastfed her, she calmed down, we had the delicious pan asian takeout M brought. I loaded up on coffee, we all left the house to go to Jenisch Park. On the way, M got us wurst. The baby fell asleep in the stroller, the dog made a new friend, M got us an Orangina in the park, we walked in the hot sun freezing wind, after an hour, the baby woke up, M carried her the rest of the way home.

I cleaned up the house, M played with the Koala, made her dinner and started her bath. I joined them later for dinner in the bathroom. The Koala eventually went down, but not without a fight.

Doors Will Open

The Koala has learned to use one of her new tools to get a very different result.

She patted her diaper and pointed to the bathroom, so I let her in, but it wasn't the poo poo that she wanted. She wanted to hang out with M, who was taking a shower and had closed the door for privacy and a little peace.

I ushered the Koala out, but once again she patted her diaper, I let her in and she pulled back the shower curtain to wave again, beaming as the water sprayed her face.

Amnesia and Romance

Today, the Koala insisted on being carried the entire time. She gave us breaks long enough to get feeling back in our arms.

M went for a run with the dog this morning. I spent two hours standing in the kitchen with the Koala on my arm, trying to feed her breakfast. She had two bites of cantaloupe. M had better luck. By the time I left for work, I was exhausted and work reinvigorated me.

I got back in the afternoon to see M destroyed. She had war stories, most of them would qualify for some kind of global military intervention.

The Koala woke up from her nap upset as usual. We all got in the car and drove M to her car sharing mini-cooper convertible. She took the dog and left for school. I had adventure envy. I drove the Koala back home. I heard some complaints from the back seat.

Back at home. the Koala wouldn't let me put her down or change her diaper. I finally pinned her down and changed her. We went to the post office and had a coffee date. She's Big Koala On Campus in the village. Waves, smiles and winks a lot.

The village at 4 pm, we both found out is an epicenter of multigenerational douchery. The Gant-clad elementary school children all ooze out like pus from the school next to our house and congregate at the gelato place as well as the italian coffee place to out douche each other in ways only rich little yacht rats can. You can imagine the parents and all of the other dilapidated pre-iron age people aren't any better.

The Koala and I took it all in very quietly. I had coffee and a spritzkuchen. The Koala had three bites of a laugenstange.

When we got home, we got a text from M: Do you want to meet at the studio? I'll be there in 10 minutes.

We got there an hour later.

I fired up the leaving the house machine, got all the shit together that we needed, wrestled the baby into a new diaper, took her under my arm to the grocery store across the street for a couple water bottles and stuffed us in the car. We got stuck in construction traffic. The Koala was restless and managed to half free herself from the car seat and got stuck in an awkward position. I figured out how to right her by reaching back with my shifting arm, yanking on her collar and letting her body settle the rest, but not without some guttural yelling.

This happened twice.

M and I are able to carry on with life because of amnesia and romance.

We forget that everything comes with loud insistent banging pleading crying melting. We forget that when we say, "how about Chinese food," we are really saying, "Do you want to bring our one man band to the Chinese restaurant? I hear he added a new tuba to the mix."

And because we forget what the reality looks and feels like, we romanticize the mundane events in our life, such as having breakfast in peace.

Or painting in the studio.

The minute we arrived, the Koala became focused solely on ripping away M's top and getting to the breasts. She squirmed and kicked as she nursed. When done, she went off to draw on her own. She came back two minutes later.

Repeated the cycle.

Ad infinitum.

M was not able to paint. The Koala grabbed at her legs and tugged at her clothes. I painted a little bit, but a lot of my time was spent refereeing and trying in vain to feed the Koala solid foods. We gave up after a while, packed up and then she took a shit in her diapers. Even with teamwork, it resulted in demonic torture sounds.

We stopped at Burger King and ordered at the drive thru to eat in the parking lot. Here, we romanticized the fast food parking lot. I released the Koala from the child seat. She crawled out of the back seat and insisted on climbing into the driver's seat to get to Maxi's breasts. She was loud. She was ornery. She was not to be stopped. We closed up shop and continued home.

Once parked, Maxi took the dog for a walk and I took the Koala and all of our things up. The Koala wailed at this arrangement. Wailed when we got in. Calmed down a bit when she saw the rest of my burger. She had a few bites. I began to get her ready for bed and she started wailing. She wouldn't let me touch her or leave her.

I sat in the bathroom and she slammed the door on me, then opened it wailing louder, closed it, opened it wailing, closed it, opened it. I prayed.

"My human child is having a human experience that is confusing to her and to me, please help me that no one gets hurt."

I managed to change her and bathe her without injury to anyone. She ran around the house naked and screaming. I put on this video and it calmed her down. Then M came home and she started wailing again. Eventually, I got her to watch the video again, she calmed down long enough for M to center herself.

M took her to bed. She was all smiles, waves and good night kisses.

M came out a few minutes later. Eyes full of tears. We hugged in the kitchen.

Tomorrow couldn't happen for us if it weren't for amnesia and romance.

The Taste of Freedom

M went for a run.

We fed the Koala a little bit. We packed her breakfast. We got her dressed and sent her out into a world without us.

This took a little over two hours.

We stayed home and simply lavished in the silence although we both noticed that we have PTSD and hear constant crying sounds even when the baby is not there and we respond with tightened and tensed bodies in the same way we would if we thought a very drunk murderer with polio was limping up the stairs.

M took the Koala to her godparents who live about a five minute drive away. She came back doing her familiar, but lately less frequent victory hoe down dance. We hugged. We danced. We frolicked.

We made breakfast.

It was silent. We just ate. We didn't have to endlessly shuffle plates, move forks and knives, catch things, pick up things, wipe things, move the baby, shift the baby, nothing. We just sat next to each other and ate.

We had grand plans, but most importantly, we wanted to clean the fuck out of the house above everything else including s.e.x. because we figured, when the hell else are we going to have four hands all to ourselves without the incessant chirping and hooting of our favorite anti-assistant.

Throughout breakfast, we kept receiving texts and photos of the Godparents and our baby. People, it's our baby. We know what she looks like. Keep it to yourselves.

We fantasized about how to clean the house. Should we do each room together? Separately? Music? What are we going to do first? Is the dishwasher ready you think?

About two hours in, phone call.

Baby having a meltdown. They put her in the stroller and she pushed the Big Red Button.

No problem. We'll just pick her up, put her to bed, clean what we can and just have whatever time we have. M, I and the dog got in the car and found them on the street. By the time we had arrived, the Koala had fallen asleep. The dog was excited to see the godparents as well as their dog. M and I split up. She took the baby and the dog for a nice walk home and I went ahead to at least put our dishes away. A minute or so after I pulled away, I heard M yell for the dog really loudly and saw the dog in the rear view bolting after me in the car. I pulled over and put her in the trunk. We went home. The dog whined the entire time.

I got home and started cleaning. About half an hour later, the doorbell rang. M came up the stairs, baby in arm wide awake. Both of us with sad faces.

Solid

"Solid!" yelled M from the bathroom.

"Huh?" I yelled back.

"Solid Poop!"

A huge victory. We'd all been waiting all day for the Koala to poop.

As usual, I'm the last to be picked for the team. Even the dog is back to solid pooping this week.

Some People are Better

M looks great. You wouldn't know that a foreign agent overtook her gastrointestinal tract and caused it to become inflamed and want to shoot everything out of it like a fireworks factory meltdown.

The Koala also looks great and is back to her full ahead level of breastual harassment.

Interesting thing about this bug. It caused the Koala to communicate very clearly about when she needs to use the toilet or when she would like a new diaper. Basically, if you want to potty train your 16 month old, take her to a stomach flu party.

She just started patting her diaper, M put her on the toilet with baby butt adapter and plop plop plop.

So this is the routine now: Baby pats diaper, leads us to bathroom, takes the butt adapter off its hook on the radiator, gives us the adapter, we position it, she excitedly gets on it with our help, does her business, claps, flush, rinse the adapter, baby wipes own butt. Whu?

It seems now that she loves the entire process and initiates it for pees and poos as well as farts or just hanging with the parents in the bathroom.

The diaper request was a surprise to me. I didn't understand it at first.

We had her cruising around like Donald Duck or Porky Pig - top, no pants - to air out her parts, she patted her vagina and I put her on the toilet. Nope. She patiently asked to be removed. She led me by the hand to the mattress on the floor, laid down and tapped her vagina, DA!

I looked at her deeply and quizzically and said, "I know you are telling me something and I'm sorry to be so slow. Help me to understand you better."

She pointed to another room, DA! and patted her vagina again.

"I think I understand. Will you show me?"

She took my hand and walked me to our hangout room and pointed up at the wall, DA!

I took a cloth diaper from the shelf and laid it on the couch. She immediately climbed on the couch and laid herself down across the diaper and started trying to close it. I finished the job for her and she ran away immediately after.

Another thing she's started doing is giving her deflated version of the OK sign after she poops. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I have a feeling she's telling us that we're gradually getting better at parenting.

*****

I on the other hand am less than OK. After the ladies began recovering from their downswing, my allergy situation worsened by the day to the point that I had to call in sick on Friday due to fatigue, aching joints, headaches, chills and whatever else symptoms associated with the Black Death. I slept most of Friday. Woke up today feeling a million times better and then my bowels decided to empty post haste. Normally, I'd be upset about peeing out my butt every 10 minutes, but today, I just said fuck it to the whole thing and hunkered down for a day of interfacing with the Thunder Box.

M took the dog with her to the studio. She looked magnificent leaving the house today.

The Koala and I took a nap together. She woke up around 2pm and all was good until she realized that she was stuck with just me and then burst out in anger and grief. She wanted nothing to do with me. No food! No water! No touching me! Don't leave me! Carry me! Don't fucking pick me up assface! Where the fuck are you going! Do you hear me! Do you hear me! Answers! I want ANSWERS!

I put on Top Gear, she instantly calmed down and she silently sat with me for the entire episode.

We tidied up a bit together. She had a lot of tuna and three bites of a croissant. She does this thing now of wiping up her spills.

I decided not to eat all day, choosing instead to have a tea of honey, lime, orange peel, cloves, salt and cayenne pepper. Cleanse motherfucker cleanse, I chanted as I drank it. My problems subsided as my guts had nothing and no one left to kick to the curb. I think I could have gone longer without eating, but I hadn't eaten that much all week, so I started having semi delirious fantasies about grilled cheeses and lasagna.

We goofed around the house. She suggested we go out so we went skateboarding only on our street, close enough for me to have enough time to grab the kid and skateboard and bolt up the stairs. She was incredibly patient throughout the layering up. I had to go a several times right before leaving and after the second run, she just stood outside the bathroom patiently and with wide eyes.

We skated a while. The Neighbors thought she was so cute on the skateboard. I have this nagging fear that someone will tell me that what I am doing is going to kill the baby. We packed up and started heading to the drugstore for colas when M pulled up alongside us. The Koala immediately got fussy remembering what she had been angry about earlier and tried to crawl in through the window. M pulled away to park, we continued to the drugstore, but the Koala was clearly displeased.

The Koala was relieved and excited to see M when we got home, but the dog, more excited to see us knocked the Koala down with all of her frantic wagging. When she finally recovered, she glommed onto M and attacked her breasts.

We had dinner. M took the dog on a walk. I gave the Koala a bath. She was exhausted. M came back and put her to bed. Minutes later, M bust into the room doing a combination ballet freeform jazz gymnastic can can celebration touch-down dance. Baby down.

We watched Grey's in peace.

Friends with Benefits: Stomach Flu Edition

We went over to friends' for breakfast on Sunday, 2 of us came home with a free batch of stomach flu.

It kicked in for M and the Koala last night around 11pm. Heavin' and a sprayin' and it was awful for everyone. Just as I'd start to drift off, I'd hear the Exorcist and run to the bathroom as a barf buddy. I got kicked out most of the time. The Koala was surprisingly chill about her ailments and downright charming. She would just quietly upchuck and then blithely point at her latest creation. During one episode of M doing child's pose at the base of the toilet, the Koala stirred and I had to get her out of bed. The bed seemed drenched in vomit and electrolyte solution. I didn't ask. I just washed my feet afterward. They both eventually settled into bed around 3am and I retired to the other room as last man standing, trying to keep it that way, but all the while feeling the cramping and vomiting coming on. I didn't sleep much as I entertained horror fantasies of being out for a week tossing chunks and shitting liquid. I soothed myself with the hope that it would finally eliminate my baby fat.

I woke up at 6am without incident, got in a super hot bath in hopes of boiling away any of the cartoon germs in my GI tract. I got dressed, got some bleach, vinegar and bathroom cleaner and made the bathroom into a cleanroom environment. Kitchen as well. Loaded up on coffee, fed the dog, took the dog for a walk and poo to come back to the find the bathroom occupied once again. Everyone was dead in the eyes and spirit except the Koala. I got supplies ready. BART. Broth, applesauce, rice, toast. Left for work.

I came back in the afternoon to find M and the Koala snuggled together in bed just chilling. It looked as though the Koala was actually enjoying it. And magically, she used this as an opportunity to let us know when she needed to go the toilet by patting her diaper and she happily did her business.

Things seemed to stabilize for them as the day went on, but my allergies kicked into overdrive to the point that it felt as though someone were lancing my brain through my left nostril. Tears and snot dripped out of my face. I couldn't see straight, my nasal passages shut down and my ears rang. I took an antihistamine which was a siren song that beckoned me to deep sleep, so I took some ibuprofen, had three cups of coffee and fritz cola.

M needed to sleep by herself.

I laid on the couch watching TV with the Koala and I think I must have blacked out because next thing I knew, an hour had passed and I had no memory of it. I'm just glad that the Koala didn't get online and join ISIS during my blackout.

I was a mouth breathing zombie throughout the day. It was nice to just hang out and have ramen with the Koala.

I can't remember much of the day.

There was a lot of BART for everyone. I vacuumed and sanitized the bathroom and kitchen. Did laundry. Answered dumb work emails. All in a painfully pilly daze.

M put the Koala to sleep around 6 pm then she and I huddled on the kitchen floor.

The kitchen is a mess again. I still haven't gone out with the dog, nor fed her. I'm in my robe.

Getting dressed and going out into the freezing rain, grateful that I dodged another day of stomach flu.

Friday

Got up at 5 am. It took me a long ass time to get ready, but I finally got into my running gear. The Cos and I went out for a 10k. At the 5k point, I had to poo really badly, but the sun had already come up so I had to squat behind a low brick wall, my face and torso in plain sight and emptied myself of the world's largest Hershey's Kiss. The dog came running up to check it out.

But I'm a responsible boy scout. I packed it out using the Cos's poo bags. I can't ever go back there in the daytime unless I wear a rubber Richard Nixon mask.

Made it home. I fed the dog. Took a hot bath. Counted my blessings that I didn't have an additional buttsplosion.

Left for work.

I met M, the Koala and the dog at a train station. We drove across town to our life coach. The life coach put us back on track. We got crappy Thai food. The Koala befriended the waitress and insisted on going into the kitchen the entire time we were there.

We got coffee, we tried to walk around the Alster for a bit. The Koala splashed in mud puddle after mud puddle.  It wasn't the walk that M had in mind. It was annoying to have to watch out for the dog and make sure the Koala didn't either run into the lake or into traffic. I now fully understand and appreciate parents who leash their kids.

We put her in the sling despite hefty protests after which she promptly fell asleep. We finally were able to walk along the water in peace.

Some other stuff happened. Something something something. Car. Surprisingly no crying in the car seat. Home. Yoga. Sleep.

Long day. Good day. I was thrilled about my hair.

My Wife is Leaving Me and the Baby and the Dog

M said this to me today: If I abandoned you guys, I would move to another apartment, I'd wake up late and get coffee somewhere.

That's what's become of her imagination.