Keeping the Home Fires Burnin'

One of A.'s impossibly Dad Things is calling the furnace "the dollar bill burner." As in, "That dollar bill burner is running again; I gotta stoke up the woodstove!"

It's a point of pride with him to keep the fire going hot enough that the furnace doesn't turn on during the day. The first thing he does when he gets up in the morning is squat in front of the woodstove to get the fire going again. He grudgingly concedes that the furnace is a handy back-up, though, so that he doesn't have to get out of his nice warm bed to feed the fire at night*.

But otherwise, he is One With the Woodstove in his quest to minimize our propane use.

However, A. left on Sunday for a week-long trip to Blackrock, leaving the woodstove to my care. Unfortunately, I also have four small children in my care, which makes it significantly more challenging to give the woodstove the attention it requires. Before he left, A. magnanimously told me I could just run the furnace and not worry about the woodstove. I'm sure it hurt him to say that, but I appreciated it.

But! I am proud to announce that I have had the woodstove going--and the furnace not going--every single day he's been gone.

This requires significantly more planning than A. has to do in his woodstove care. For instance, I make sure the night before that I have paper, cardboard, and small pieces of wood so that I can get the fire started in the morning without going in and out of the door, thereby possibly waking up small children.

I can only empty the ashes--which has to be done every other day--when Poppy is safely strapped into her chair at the table and thus can't trip me up on my way out the door with a pan of hot ashes and embers.

I try to get the fire going before she wakes up, too, so that I don't have her standing at my shoulder, staring longingly at the pretty flames while I block her with my body so she doesn't crawl right in there with them.

Nascent morning fire.

Not that she has tried getting too close to the fire, actually. She's pretty cautious, as a matter of fact. And just yesterday, when she had a complete meltdown outside while we were waiting for the school bus that even nursing didn't stop, I brought her with me to stoke up the fire and she calmed right down while she was staring at the flames.

They are quite meditative, I must say. And they've been burning the whole time A. has been gone.

Thus, Ronnie Milsap performs my theme song for the week.

Here's me taking my bow. And washing soot off my hands for the fiftieth time.

* It has occurred to me that since I still get up with Poppy at least twice a night, I could actually shove a piece of wood in there on my way through the kitchen, but . . . no. Shuffling into her room to feed her is challenging enough without adding a live fire and splintery wood into the mix at 2 a.m.