Sunday Bloody Sunday
Yay, it's Sunday morning. Sun is shining. Morning is bright. I've got the day off! Read the New York Times in bed. Look into Bill’s sleepy eyes and smirk. We can have a romantic breakfast in bed.
Oh wait...I forgot.
We have a two-year-old son that's best described as a perpetual motion machine. We are his parents. More meaningfully, we are "his people." We are on call 24/7. We are completely unqualified for the job. We took on a lifetime commitment for a brief moment of pleasure. I think, I'll just close my eyes and go back to sleep.
"WHAAAAAAAA-WHAAAA!"
I guess not. Crawl out of bed. Time to clock in. I'm back on duty. Somebody's got to negotiate a better contract for parents. Maybe I'll start a parenting union in my spare time.
Oh, wait...I don't have any spare time.
I don't have any kind of time.
Never mind.
Here come those fat little delicious feet stomping and thumping along the hardwood floors to our bedroom. My arms are open. My heart is smiling. And yet, all I really want to do is crawl back beneath the blankets and daydream. Me,alone, lying on a beach. No one ever warned me motherhood would make me a master at wishing two entirely contradictory thoughts every other minute, and then feeling guilt-ridden and exhausted during the nano-seconds in between fleeting thoughts.
It is a beautiful sunny day in April. Bill suggests the three of us drive out to Pt. Reyes for mountain bike riding and a kayak trip. I married not only an exceptional athlete but a diehard, wholehearted wilderness man, too. We live in beautiful Northern California, but deep inside I am still an escaped New Yorker-Type A-who grew up thinking Manhattan was the Center of the Universe and Central Park was the back woods.
We pack up the Jeep. Jack grabs his militia of stuffed bunnies off the bed and fills the back seat with his stuffed entourage. Bill loads the inflatable kayak we borrowed from out friend Betty. I mount the bikes on the bike rack. I keep telling myself we are going to have a fun day, but deep down inside I know it’s there. Patiently lurking. Waiting. Stalking. Disguised beneath that sweet, cherubic face, lies all the necessary kindling for the mother of all tantrums.
We keep feeding Jack snacks so he doesn’t get bored during the hour-long drive. He is not keen about sitting still for any length of time. Two soymilks and one Poptart later, we arrive it at the mountain bike trails without much fuss. I put Jack on the bike seat mounted behind me and we take off down the road. Bill and I are laughing as he elaborates ad nauseum about the different trees we are biking past. Not because I am remotely interested, or that he really cares, but just to torture me. He knows all trees look the same to me and that my mother and I are absolutely certain there is some crazy person hiding behind each one. Just when I am beginning to enjoy myself and think that maybe we can do fun family activities together, Jack begins crying because he has dropped his sippy cup somewhere in these wood. We reluctantly turn around and spend the next twenty minutes searching for his cup with the wild banshee hysterically crying in the most beautiful, serene God’s country you could ever imagine. Two twenty-something cyclists speed by us. They are surely wondering why we can’t do something about that crying kid! The sippy cup is gone forever I’m afraid. We decide to end our bike ride.
What sorry losers, giving in to a two year old.
In the car, we feed Jack crackers and cheese to keep his mind off the sippy cup and the twenty-minute windy drive to Tomales Bay where we intend to go kayaking. It works for a good while.
We make it to the bay singing, "Dang me, dang me. Ought to take a rope and hang me. Hang me from the highest tree," over and over and over. Everyone is doing just fine when we arrive at the parking lot.
Except for two not so minor problems.
(continued...)
