Tomorrow, my baby girl will be two years old. She's been battling a fever for the better part of a week now, and that's lead to plenty of lost sleep for her mom and me. Last night, I took a trio of little ones to have dinner with their aunt and uncle. Amity was in high spirits there; the fever no longer a factor. She ran and played and ate well and jabbered up a storm.
I spent a very long time being quite certain that I wanted no part of being a dad. I could barely afford to take care of myself, I reasoned. They'd be annoying. I'm too busy. Funny thing about that, though, is that the priorities just seem to shift all by themselves when they need to. There have been things I'd like to do that I no longer can, but none of that matters at all when I come home from work and immediately have at least two kids draped around my legs welcoming me back to their lives.
Amity and Leyton have only seemed to grow closer over the past few months. Now that she can articulate her thoughts a bit better, she always has to make sure that whatever she has, that Leyton gets one, too. It's not unusual for the two of them to randomly hug each other and one is always asking the other to play. It reminds me a lot of when Lillian and Sebastian were a bit younger; they did many of the same things. I wonder how that dichotomy will change once the Player To Be Named Later* is born.
*Actually, my wife and I have already settled on a name for the new baby, but Player Whose Name Is To Be Revealed Later doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?
Speaking of... that PTBNL is in no hurry to greet his older siblings. Valerie has made several appearances at her doctor's office and the progress little baby boy Parent has made seems minimal at best. I told my Dad on March 5 that I was quite certain he'd have a new grandchild before St. Patrick's Day, now I'm just hoping that Amity and he new little bro don't have to share a birthday. Technically, the due date isn't until the 30th, but it can't really go that far, can it?
We've been having quite a bit of fun at Lillian's expense recently. It's driving her nuts that we won't divulge the baby's name, but Valerie did tell her it began with an "A". We've spent the last couple of months referring to the PTBNL in conversation by different "A" names (Anthony, Arnold, Alvin, etc). In one instance, Lillian was convinced we slipped up and revealed the name and she swore she wouldn't tell. It took her all of about 45 seconds after she walked into her grandma's house to unburden herself of that information far too juicy to keep secret. honestly, I can't recall what name it was that Valerie had casually used and Lillian took as gospel, but the true name it wasn't.
We have wooden letters that spell out each child's name. They hang on the walls of their rooms. We've kept the "A" sitting around in the open since Valerie gave that clue and two days ago, we agreed to leave another letter visible. Lillian immediately took the bait and we spent an hour or so trying to guess the name. I had both Lillian and Sebastian guess which letters they thought would be included in the name and wrote each one on a separate piece of paper. Lillian then shuffled them around to try to name names. Didn't work. The best she could come up with was "Aiden", but that's not the name, either.
The waiting game has taken control of our lives, I think. We haven't done laundry since last week sometime. I think we both just expect everyday that tomorrow the baby will and then tomorrow comes and he's not here and we expect it will happen tomorrow. In the meantime, we simply pass the time as quickly as we can and wait for tomorrow to come.