Snowstorm

February 16th, 2021 @ 5:48 AM

I just fed Asher. Asher woke up (sort of) at 4:30. He has a particular cry when he gets hungry. Karin was awake with him until almost 2:00 AM. Perhaps she didn’t need to up that late. I don’t know. The trick is to sleep when Asher sleeps. If a person waits too long after Asher dozes, then he is up again, and the cycle of feeding and sleeping and pooping repeats. I sleep poorly at best, and I am attuned to Asher’s little moans and cries. Some of them are false alarms, but usually I can tell when he needs somebody, and that somebody is me.

By the way, Asher is our grandson, and he is ten weeks old.

It’s snowing and blowing outside. It’s white and windy and nasty. Even our two dogs won’t go out in this shit. I encouraged Shocky, our border collie, to rouse herself and go pee. No response other than a bleary-eyed refusal. Shocky and Sara, our two elderly dogs, will eventually go out the door to take care of their business, but it will be with extreme reluctance.

I am letting Karin sleep. She needs it. We both need it. We are in our sixties, and we are getting a bit old to care for an almost newborn. Karin and I are the designated caregivers for Asher now that his mother is in jail. We are capable of loving and caring for the lad, but it is tiring. There is no denying that.

Our son, Hans, called us from Texas yesterday. They had evil bad weather there too. Hans’ wife, Gabi, gave birth to their daughter, Madeline, on Saturday. Due to medical issues, Gabi and Maddy could not return home until yesterday. This was a problem since the power, and heat, was off in their apartment for several hours yesterday. The electrical grid in Texas failed miserably during this extremely unusual cold snap. The snow and the intense cold essentially shut the entire state down.

Wisconsin, where we live, is prepared for winter, but that doesn’t mean that we all like it. My front yard looks like a lunar landscape. It will take me hours to shovel things out. Would it be easier with a snow blower? Maybe. I don’t know. I do know that I am retired, and we have no place that we need to go. If it takes all day to clean out the driveway, so be it. Karin prefers that I don’t have a heart attack.

I could ask our youngest son, Stefan, to come here to help me clean up the snow. I don’t want to do that. Stefan is a welder with the Iron Workers Union, and he spends every day doing his job in the cold and snow. He works hard enough already. I want don’t want to be a burden to him. Stefan pushes himself way too hard. Karin says the same thing about me.

Asher sleeps. His sleep is fitful, but that could be because he was almost two months premature. Asher sleeps the sleep of the innocent. He’s too young to have screwed up anything. He can’t have any regrets. Sometimes, like now, he smiles in his sleep. He just dreams baby dreams, whatever they are.

I wish that I could sleep like him.