First time for everything

Last night I was home alone with the kids. Sophie is still eating breast milk exclusively so mom made sure she was topped up before going out the door to an all mom rendezvous at a local drinking establishment. All the women had newborns at home and therefore made the rule that no baby's were allowed (success) and that they would try to avoid talking about babies (which I understand they failed miserably considering all of them were on baby duty 24-7). Usually when I have the kids to myself I do something that is distinctly daddy. Sometimes it's going for a bus/train ride on the public transit system, a few times it was going to Denny's where I let them order whatever they want off the kids menu and once we even went to the local Futureshop and watched a movie on their biggest High definition TV with the latest surround sound system. Considering this was Sophie's first time I stayed relatively close to home and just made a trip to the park. Nicholas and Juliette played on the structure and Sophie cooperated by not crying, as long as I held her in my arms and bounced from side to side while I chatted with the other parents. When we got home I happened to be passing by a mirror with Sophie in my arms. Now she's been smiling like nuts for weeks now and I wondered how she would react to a smiling baby (i.e. her own reflection). And then it happened, as I held her in my arms and approached the mirror she started laughing. I've always said that the most beautiful sound in the world is the sound of a child's laugh (the younger the better). If you don't believe me check out the most heavily awarded video from the long running show America's Funniest Home Video (AFV) which is a short movie of a mother of quintuplets who are approximately 9 months old lying on their mom dressed identically as they all giggle simultaneously. Nobody can watch that clip without smiling, its effect is like a drug. So when Sophie laughed I was so happy not only to hear the sound, but just the very fact that it was in my 2 hours a day I actually get to spend with her, she chose that moment to have her first laugh. The rest of the evening involved giving Sophie a bath (she truly loves the water), getting Juliette to give Nicholas a bath and trying to get everyone to bed. When it came time to get Sophie to sleep I though that there was little to no chance of her falling asleep without being breastfed so I could either a) try and feed her some formulae or b) just hold and rock her until she fell asleep. I chose the latter and to my amazement it only took half an hour before she was sleeping by herself. I then helped the other two with their baths (Juliette complained that Nicholas kept splashing her while she was helping him with his so the bathroom was a bit wet), read them stories and begged Nicholas to stay in his bed and out of Sophie's room (which he's had a habit of doing lately). Everything was going fine until I heard Sophie cry and then little footsteps of a culprit running back to his room. Sure enough Nicholas had woken up Sophie and I was convinced that I'd be spending the rest of the night trying to get her to back to sleep. My perfect image of a capable father able to get his kids to bed and have the house relatively clean while mom was away was shot to hell. I don't think I've ever been so upset at Nicholas before. I went into his room, asked him what he had done, yelled at him and then stormed out. Then suffering from guilt but still very annoyed at Nicholas I went back to him hugged and kissed him so that he would stop crying and explained to him that waking up Sophie was very bad. Then as it turned out it took all of 5 minutes of holding and rocking Sophie to get her back to sleep. So as it turns out I got all worked up for nothing and as expected mom was amazed of the state of affairs when she returned home an hour later. Sometimes it pays off to have little to no expectations. Regardless of what happened that evening I was happy that I managed to put all three kids to bed by myself for the first time and that I was around for Sophie's first laugh. I hope I'm lucky enough to be around for some of the other firsts like rolling over, crawling, taking her first steps, having her first teeth, saying her first word etc...