A Day in the Life

When his daughter was not quite a year old, Herb made a video he called “A Day in the Life of Rosemary”. He started with footage of her waking up in the morning and caught ordinary moments throughout the day (eating breakfast, playing with her toys, climbing the stairs, etc.), and ended with tucking her back into her crib that night. Nothing unusual or spectacular, just ordinary happenings on an ordinary day. But it’s a tape he’s watched over and over during the past 17 years.
So today, we’re making “A Day in the Life of Ryan”, trying to capture all the wonderful little moments that we see every day. But naturally, he’s not quite having his usual day today. For example, nearly every morning he wakes up at 6:30 or 7 and sings and plays in his crib for half an hour or so before going back to sleep for another hour or two. So Herb had the video camera ready outside the nursery so he could sneak down the hall at Ryan’s first peep and capture those moments before he went back to sleep again. And at about 6:30, we heard a little peep and Herb immediately slipped down the hall to grab some footage. But the little stinker didn’t sing or play or even wake up! He just went right back to sleep! So we stayed in bed for a couple more hours and then when Ryan STILL didn’t wake up we got ourselves dressed and ready for when he finally did. At 9:15, he finally started to stir a bit, so Herb got some footage of him waking up and playing (a little), but none of his usual singing. Oh, well.
He did cooperate nicely at breakfast, doing his usual staring out the window or across the room while he absent-mindedly opened his mouth so I could stick in the spoon. He was quite distracted by the camera, though, so a lot of his staring across the room was really staring at the camera, but at least that was similar to his typical behavior.
He also cooperated by playing very happily with his toys in his playpen. He pulled himself up and made one of his toys play music by spinning its wheels and whacking the little animals so they would light up and roll balls around. He spent quite a bit of time rolling balls down the ramp of another toy, even chasing after the balls when they rolled into the corners of the playpen and behind other toys. He did a bit of cruising around the playpen wall and grinned rather charmingly (and proudly) at the camera when he finished.
He was somewhat less cooperative when he started climbing the stairs and I called Herb to get some footage. As soon as the camera (and Daddy) appeared, he was much more interested in that than in showing off his stair-climbing prowess. Eventually he was willing to at least stand up and hang off the banister, but it was obvious that stair-climbing was no longer at the top of his interest list. And of course, after hanging on the banister he managed to fall over and clock himself on a side table next to the stairs, so we managed to catch the “drama of the day” on film, as well.
Once he settled down from that little injury (although I suspect the insult to his pride was the larger problem), he was willing to have a bottle and snuggle with Mum for a bit. He was still pretty sniffly so I took him out to sit by the pool and get some fresh air, which always seems to calm him down. I think we may have caught some sweet (if not typical) footage of Mummy singing lullabies to the koala boy. Unfortunately, instead of falling asleep, he got his second wind and then wanted to march around the house again.
After a bit of marching, a bit of crawling, and a bit of ball rolling, he seemed sleepy again, so Daddy took him upstairs for a nap, which is where he is right now. Only he’s not napping, he’s standing against the bars of the crib, chewing the top rail and bouncing up and down. He’s not yelling, though, so I’m not complaining.
So the video we make may not be a typical “day in the life” after all. But then, how often do we really have something that could be called a typical day? Maybe the fact that it’s not a typical day makes it a typical day after all. Just one more of life’s delicious little ironies.