Today is Jen’s first day back at work.

She doesn’t have students yet, but she has to be in the building for preparatory meetings and the like.

And I, like an idiot, stayed up way too late last night catching up on my World of Warcraft errands in preparation for Legion’s release in two weeks.

Fortunately Daphne was kind enough to wait until 8am to start yelling, “DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH!” directly into the microphone of the baby monitor, so at least I got a little snooze time.

I went upstairs to rescue her from the crib, and we came back down for our usual bed/video time.

The best time of the day.

Then I carried her out to the living room and dropped her into the Joovy Yard, my plan being to YouTube some Little Baby Bum to keep her happy while I took a shower.  I flip on the TV and am instead met with a black screen…

“NO SIGNAL.  CHECK YOUR HDMI CABLE.”

I check the cables.  They’re all fine.  After some rebooting of all components involved, I make a call to a local home theater guy and it turns out that the HDMI board in my receiver has gone bad…again.  (This makes second time in 2 years; don’t buy Onkyo products, you guys.)

Not worth the plastic it’s housed in.

He can’t get anyone out to replace it for a couple weeks, but he says I’m welcome to come by and pick it up from his shop if I want to install it myself.  The idea of being without a television for 2 weeks is terrifying, so I agree to come get it.

While I’m on the phone with him, Daphne starts screaming in her playpen.  I reach down to pick her up and find that she’s shaking and wide-eyed, so I assume she thought that I’d left her alone?  I hang up with the repair guy to focus on her and, after a few minutes of crying directly into my eardrum, she calms down and I call the repair guy back.

We get about 2 minutes into the conversation when a car alarm goes off out front and causes Alex and Jib to collectively lose their puppy minds, which scares Daphne, which starts her crying again.  So I quickly tell the guy that I’ll come pick up the receiver this afternoon, hang up, and start trying to calm my household down again.

“Guys.  I think my daddy’s head is going to explode…”

I put Daph in her high chair and throw some Cheerios and apple juice at her, which hits the pause button on her tears.
I feed the dogs, which distracts them from the car alarm outside.
Then I fill a Thermos with coffee and pack Daphne up and take her to her grandparents’ place.  On the way there, I get a text from my wife that says she does indeed have jury duty today, and I’ll need to pick Daphne up early.

At this point I would normally call it for the day and simply head back home, but I have some stuff that absolutely must be done at the office this morning, so I had to head in and take care of it.

Hopefully I’m at the end of the challenges for the day.

j.s.