00:00 – 01:00 Still Thursday for me. Watch DVR’d Earl episode (recorded while I was on a conference call with Australians) while debugging some object scoping code on the laptop.
01:00 – 02:00 Daughter wakes up, is unhappy. Requires help with bathroom, and calming from Daddy. I go to bed and start reading the new G. M. Ford book, Blown Away, while I hear her continue to not sleep. Wife also hears this. Eventually daughter returns to sleep. Daughter wakes again at 2:00 screaming about the “doggie” that chases her in her sleep.
02:00 – 02:30 Bring daughter into parental bed. Listen for thirty minutes to incredibly loud breathing and sucking sounds from child. Wife pretends to sleep. Not enough blanket, so my arm gets very cold. After 30 minutes, child still not asleep, return her to her own bed. She is unhappy.
02:30 – 04:30 Several cycles of child not sleeping intermixed with reading G.M. Ford. Even during the quiet moments separating non-sleep attacks, there is no hope of my getting to sleep. Ford book is good. Worried that this unusual non-sleep may indicate child is coming down with something. Child finally demands snack at 4:15, eats bowl of dry Cheerios, and then is removed from bed and placed in playpen. Falls asleep. I read a few more pages of Ford and soon fall asleep.
04:30 – 08:00 3.5 hours of sleep is all a man needs, right? Child wakes up for the day in here somewhere, as does wife. Both of them get even less sleep than I do.
08:00 – 08:15 Prepare to take child to day care. Normal morning rituals, but running a little late.
08:15 – 09:00 Drive child to day care. Stop for heavily caffeinated beverage. Drive home. Feeling quite ill–is this the flu wife/child had, brought on by weakened immune system from several days of inadequate sleep?
09:00 – 11:00 Stare blankly at computer monitor. Growing headache. No ability to think. Sure that some form of stomach flu is imminent. Finally admit defeat, call in sick, and walk across the hall to downstairs bedroom. Immediately fall asleep.
11:00 – 15:00 Sleep. During this time an electrician arrives to install our new cooktop. Wife handles this. Apparently the “hole” from the old cooktop is smaller than the one required by the new one, so renovations occur. All of this is immediately above the downstairs bedroom. My only evidence of this occurring is that the new cooktop was there when I eventually got up. I am a powerful sleeper. At some point towards the end of this period my wife lies down on upstairs couch for a nap, and is driven into our bedroom by my snoring from the floor below. I am a powerful snorer.
15:00 – 16:30 Arise, marvel at new cooktop. Ponder possibilities presented by new “bridge element”–how many pancakes could be simultaneously prepared? Leave house. Drive into town, get lunch, stop at grocery store for a bag of those little red grapes from Chile that are so good this time of year, pick up delicious pizzas to cook at home for supper, pick up child at day care, return home. Drive home is marked by mass consumption of grapes by two generations of McLarens and much singing of Old McLaren Had A Book.
16:30 – 17:00 Learn the “I know my shapes song”, which will hang around in my head like a bad cold. Read stories about famous Canadian criminals to daughter.
17:00 – 19:00 Cook pizzas, eat a small amount (just had lunch–it’s fine; the pizza is great cold), supervise “bath time”, supervise “snack time” (child eats more dry cheerios on floor while I read more crime stories to her), put child to bed.
19:00 – 20:30 Leave house, return rental movies, rent Bandidas, visit mall and purchase a couple of new CDs and a book of easy mazes. Return home.
20:30 – 23:00 Read some stuff on the net while wife watchs second-half of “mountie in the crazy house” episode. Note that mountie’s Hamlet references are possible foreshadowing of Gross’ brilliant performance in Slings and Arrows series. Kind of watch Bandidas, while continuing to surf. Movie does not hold my attention. Something is wrong when Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz can’t hold my attention, even when they are having wet-shirt-cat-fights and and rolling around in bawdy costumes. Wife, clearly delusional from lack of sleep, argues that Cruz is more attractive than Hayek–reject this foolish notion outright. Put wife to bed.
23:00 – 24:00 Write up pathetic “what I did today” entry for blog, highlighting my exciting Friday. Realize that sleeping all afternoon has ruined any chance of sleep tonight. Oh well, finishing the Ford will mean I can start the Bramah books from Christmas.
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