It pours

Greg and I watched "MacGruber" in its entirety last night.

I found it concurrently awful and amazing. I doubt I'm alone.

It kept me up, however, fretting at around 2 a.m. last night.

Who bankrolled this?

Was it that popular of an SNL sketch?

Is Val Kilmer's career dead?

Hasn't Lorne Michaels learned anything?

I found it more comforting to worry about "MacGruber's" financing than our own. That's the beauty of pictures, I reckon. Escape reality. Even if it means worrying about someone else keeping the lights on -- and staring at the digital alarm clock wondering if Ryan Phillippe dropping that ridiculous pout was a calculated career move or something he did for the role. Aaaaand action!

Thing is, I quit my job. I ultimately made the decision to stay home. Greg has been 100 percent supportive. Do I have a leg to stand on in the fretting department? I could be working and helping out financially. But it's not like the halved paycheck I'd be bringing home, less daycare, would be keeping us flush in craft beers. I'd still be dodging calls from 800 numbers, hoarding quarters to buy coffee, and stewing about "MacGruber." That and walking around all day a shell of a person because I miss my baby so much? Not worth it. Welcome to parenthood.

I had a meltdown on Friday that lasted well into Saturday, stoked by weapons-grade cabin fever, a self-diagnosed raging case of Seasonal Affective Disorder and the ol' our-ceiling-is-raining-rodent-turd blahs.

June was hunkered down on "Studio Junebug," also known as her little playmat thingie, gurgling, batting at plush animals and drooling -- living the baby dream. I was puttering around her room, straightening up and whatnot when I noticed dirt on her crib sheet. I leaned in to get a closer look at one particular chunk -- oblong, dark, roughly the size of a 14-pt exclamation mark.

"Is that... no ... it can't be... please don't let it be ..."

And just when I realized the likelihood of its origins (I imagined I was making a Sydney Bristow end-of-episode face at this point. Greg and I are revisiting "Alias."), a gust of wind from outside surged through the rafters and another scattering (pun intended) of god knows what fell from the sketchy covered crawl space in our even sketchier dropped ceiling and right onto where her sweet face would be if she was asleep.

Cue meltdown.

I stared at the growing pile in disgusted rage before flying into action and cleaning it up. June, being the sweet, good-natured baby that she is, just looked up at me from the nearby mat and smiled. I imagined she was thinking, "Hmmm, why does the one with the boobs have such red eyes, and why is she making noises like I do when they put my arms in sleeves? In other news, ooooh, this fist tastes delicious."

I leaned over and pressed the belly of her musical, bicurious (he wears a bow tie and a sailor's cap) octopus to fill the air with its boisterous classical midi files and cover the sounds of my heaving sobs. I must have been a pitiful sight.

It was a pretty over-the-top parenting metaphor. Despite my best efforts, shit's going to fall on this child. That's life, that's growing up. I can't protect her from everything bad. But we can move her crib. So Greg did.

Dante Bellini, friend from Providence, sent me a quote from an author he's reading that said something akin to child rearing being an exercise in "screaming vulnerability."

Amen.

It seems like in the past few weeks her growth progression has malfunctioned and been set to "high speed." She's hitting milestones daily and changing at a pace that my itchy camera trigger finger can't keep up with. Any day now she'll roll over. Then sit up. Then crawl. Then get her driver's license, go to college, get married and move away from me. People warned me it would go by fast. I wasn't prepared with how fast.

It both breaks my heart and makes it swell with pride.

The "MacGruber" effect.

I've said since she was born that I want to clone her -- keep one June as she is at that very moment and let the other June grow. That's never been more true than right now. I mean, she's laughing now -- laughing! -- talk about speaking my language. This June will stay in my arms while the other June makes her meteoric trip through life. That's a fair plan, I think.

I was looking at some photos last night of her first month. I thought she was such a substantial baby -- robust, strong and hardy -- when in fact she was just as small as every other seven-and-a-half-pound newborn out there, sleepy, frail and curled up in my arms like a kitten.

I look at her now and she's a giant -- but babies just six months older point in fascination at her diminutive size. However, she's a big gal for her age, hovering in the 95th percentile. But size is relative. Next to her cousin Sam, about a year her senior, she looks like a Polly Pocket.

I just called her doctor to find out how to proceed with sunblock and other protection when we head to Phoenix in two days. Confirming what I already knew, she said, "Keep her out of the sun."

I may not be able to protect her from everything bad life tosses her way, but I can do more than I realize.