Sunshine!
After a monsoon weekend, we finally had sunshine today! Until I met Mike, I wasn’t much of an outdoorsy type. I could spend whole weekends glued to my computer, barely moving out of my chair. Spring break? Summer vacation? Oh baby! Why bother to wear clothes? Though I was meticulous about showering. I can recall two days in my entire history of pre-teenhood through present that didn’t include a shower. One was at a college get-to-know-you retreat (because unshowered is EXACTLY the way I want all my new peers to remember me) and one was a particularly bad newborn infant day.
That’s neither here, nor there.
Pre-Mike it was rare that I would enjoy a walk around the neighborhood. Once he came into my life I looked down and noticed I was a whaling accident waiting to happen, so I started going on walks down the old railroad tracks along the Columbia river. Soon, I moved to Sweden and Mike and I took a nightly walk around the town every single day, as long as the temperatures were above -20C. When we moved back to the States and landed in the concrete suburbs of Alexandria our walking days were over. I WENT NUTS! I missed sunshine! And green! And the movement of my body through the sunshine and green! Don’t be misled. I will never slap a pack on my back and plan a day long excursion up the side of a mountain, but an hour on a bike path in the neighborhood is a nice little treat.
This weekend there was no movement of my body through sunshine and green. Instead, we hovered around the TV trying to avoid becoming victims of the unruly weather gods. Erik is also a nature boy, so he was climbing the walls even more than me.
All that to say, we took a very long walk this afternoon. Hallelujah! We drove over to my friend’s house, which was kind of silly since it would be a fairly short walk. There is no way in hell that I want Erik to figure out we can walk over there or I will never have peace again. We walked to one of our playgroup houses in November and he still wants to go back every single time we go to the park. They have a lake behind them, so we took to the trail and saw all kinds of ducks and garbage. The ducks were cute. The garbage makes me hate my fellow man. Why is it so friggin’ difficult to put your trash in the trash can? My mom drilled that into our heads when I was little. I can’t let a gum wrapper fall to the ground. My sister throws food wrappers out her car window. What is WRONG with her and the people like her? Do they like looking at trash lining the highway and floating in lakes?
Hopefully all the physical activity will make Erik tired. He was up half the night nursing. By 5 am I was ready to squish his head, but when I grabbed him a bit more roughly than necessary he started whimpering so I decided abusing my child early in the morning wouldn’t accomplish my goal of getting more sleep. I think he’s just going through another growth spurt. I hope. Something’s going on that’s making him eat like mad and cry all the time. He can’t find his happiness, and even when he does find it he aggressively refuses to laugh and smile. I hear three is worse than two. Can I hire a nanny for the year?
I have no idea where I’m going with this entry, and I don’t intend to find out. Instead, I intend to go to bed and get some sleep. Maybe I’ll take the guest bed and make Mike attend to the needs of the child. I know all the parenting advice says the father should have equal night time parenting duty, but when Mike gets up at 5:15 in the morning to go earn money so we can live an upper-middle-class lifestyle, I’m not inclined to get picky with what’s fair and what’s not fair. It is not fair that he has to get up so early every single morning. It is not fair Erik still doesn’t sleep through the night. We are both sleep deprived, but at least I don’t have to do any complicated aeronautic whoopdeedoos when I get up in the morning. I just have to figure out how to cut the recipe for Jell-O jigglers down by a factor of four (algebra! fractions! not fun!)
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Well, I hate to shower. I am down to every other or every two days. That’ll probably have to change now that it’s getting hot.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:40 am
I thought three was great. The transition from 2 to 3 is rough, as it really marks the transition from toddler to little kid, but once they hit 3, they are more comfortable in their own skin and more capable, too. Hang in there with the behavior - helping them through changes is no doubt tough, but you are the best person to do it.
Mommyprof’s last blog post..Grade inflation
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I agree with Mommyprof… after going through the 2’s, (I also agree about the transition from 2 to 3 being a rough period) but 3 was like a whole new world!