Where's that engineering degree when I need it?

My babysittee arrived around 3pm today. It's 11:00 now, and he just went to sleep about half an hour ago.

I am utterly exhausted.

Actually, I spent the weekend cleaning my house, and I don't just mean doing the dishes. I mopped, swept, dusted the ceilings, moved furniture, etc. I also got very little sleep. By about noon today, I was already ready to pass out, so I don't think today is a fair assessment for my "are people with kids really just whiny and annoying" project.

I did, however, learn already that having my own child would be quite a shock to my system.

After they arrived, it took about half an hour for his mom and I to unload her car. I'm grateful that she practically brought everything he owns, but I can barely fit my stuff in the car when I travel, and I don't require a stroller and a crib!

My cousin told me that he likes to play with phones and remote controls. Seeing as how my only phone is my iPhone and we hadn't gotten any of his toys out yet, I decided he couldn't do much harm to my remote controls. Within minutes, he'd changed the channel on my cable box and my TV and had set up some kind of weather alerts that I didn't even know existed. As we all know, 3 p.m. is my Shepard Smith time. I DVR Stuido B every day, because I'm usually busy or not home, and I watch it at night after the Daily Show. Every time he pressed buttons, I had a silent panic attack, but the thought of voicing my concerns seemed so trivial.

His mom left around 4 p.m., and he and I played for a little while. She said it was technically his nap time, and he actually fell asleep for a little while. I hadn't yet set up his little bed, so I put him in my bed. During this time, my plan was to make this great chicken recipe I'd been planning since last week; I'd already thawed out the chicken and everything. By the time I could pull up the recipe on my iPhone, he was awake.

At this point, I decided it would be best if I get his little portable playpen/crib thing put together before bedtime. Good grief, that thing should have come with instructions. It literally took a leg and two arms to snap it in place, and then I was left with these two metal rods that I had no idea what to do with. Let's just hope it doesn't close up on him tonight!

Then I tried to open up his stroller so I could sit him in it to feed him. She also brought some sort of highchair, but after the crib thing, I refused to try to put that together. Before she left, she showed me how to open the stroller: "you just push this button and pull the seat and voila."

"That's easy enough," I responded, thinking how hard can it be to open a stroller? My dad was here when I was trying to open the stroller (he was dropping my dogs off). He watched as I pushed and pulled and finally asked what I was doing. It took me texting my cousin to realize you are supposed to turn the handle after you push the button and before you pull the seat. I must have missed that part. Oops.

So, after I fed him, I realized I haven't eaten a thing all day, and I wasn't about to wait for that thawed out chicken to cook. Naturally, I decided we'd make a quick Chick fil A run. It was only about 7:30, and I wanted to watch the GOP debate at 9. Had I been by myself, I would have been back by the time Shepard Smith signed off on the Fox Report (yes, I DVR that too), but I wasn't. I was in the dark with a 15-month-old baby and a car-seat that had more straps and buckles on it than one of those scary bondage outfits you see in movies. After about 20 minutes of trying to figure it out, I sent a text to my cousin again and asked her how to put it in the car. I was afraid she was going to get pissed off at this point, but she assured me it wasn't just me.

We finally got home just as the debate started. He's supposed to go to bed at 9 p.m., but he was checking out my waffle fries, and I thought maybe he'd sleep later in the morning if I let him stay up late. I think he finally went down around 10:30 p.m.

Oh, well. Aside from my inability to understand this newfangled baby equipment, I'd say day one went pretty well. He's actually a really good kid, just very busy. Then again, day one was only really half a day, so who knows what tomorrow will bring.

On that note, I've got some chicken to cook and a bed calling my name.