Photo Friday: Play

Sometimes when I'm tired, the only "play" (the theme for Photo Friday this week) I can handle is the play my boy needs. And sometimes, even then, I can barely manage that! I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired... and oh, I'M TIRED. But he's my boy, and he needs the love, and I'd do pretty much anything for this kid. So when I'm in that PARTICULAR state of tired, I "play" with my boy by sitting on the floor and letting him climb all over me like a jungle-gym.

I let him use my hair to pull himself up (although I tend to mention to him that I'd prefer he used my arms, legs, or clothes).

I let him scoot over my legs to one side, and then back to the other, and then back to the other again.

I tackle him in a football hold and roll back and forth on my back with him pinned close to me so I can zerbert his head with every roll.

And quite often, I even drag him back by his ankles whenever he tries to get away from me.

Baby-Free

This weekend, in Whistler, I went baby-free twice. TWICE! Once on my own while my kind KIND husband let me have drinks with a girlfriend on a very sunny patio, and once with the husband while we split a babysitter with another couple so we could all be baby-free and get sloshed for the evening.

Notice a theme here?

Anyway, theme aside, the thing I noticed this weekend wasn't that I enjoy being baby-free so much, but it's moreso being baby-STUFF-free that I enjoy. Meaning, both times, I left the hotel with simply a wallet that doubles as a clutch. Me, my ID, credit card, a compact, camera, and phone - THAT'S IT! No diaper bag, no diapers, no change of baby clothes for worst-case-scenarios and changing weather, no baby food, bibs, rags, bottles, wipes, pacifiers, spoons, sunscreen, toys, or anything ELSE baby-related.

And a couple weeks ago, when the husband and I had date-night [so obviously were baby-free yet again], the thing I enjoyed THAT night was not that I was free of my BOY, it's that I was free of a SCHEDULE.

Like, we got to leave the house WHENEVER we felt like it, because the BABYSITTER could feed him. Like we got to go from pub to restaurant to pub to restaurant to pub, without even CONSIDERING if we'd be walking at a time when D would need to eat, or sleep, or be changed, or or or. Like we got to stay out past NINE PM(!!!!!), because we didn't need to work towards D's usual 7-7:30 bedtime, AND we didn't need to work towards our manipulative ways of EXTENDING his bedtime on the rare night we brave that feat.

And all of it was just quite... FREEING. And not freeing the way it is when I leave the house with him in the Bjorn and just a diaper in my pocket (uh, rare!), but freeing like I had my hands free to you know, put them in my POCKETS! Because apparently I HAVE pockets! That are useful! That I can put my hands in, that I can store my OWN stuff in, that I can put my hands in to GET my stuff from! Or freeing like I could hold hands with the husband because there wasn't a stroller being pushed by two of our hands. Or freeing like I could even go so far as to leave the house/hotel without having to first do some math on when we'd be leaving versus how long we'd be gone and what it'd mean I had to take with me for that outing.

Going Home Sucks

Right now, at this very moment, I'm in Whistler. With the husband. And the boy. And it's been... AWESOME. Not only because we lucked into a SMOKIN' deal on a 1 bedroom suite, but also because that suite helped the boy sleep - sleep like he was at home.

Naps? No problemo! 3-9 hour stretches at night? Easy peasy! Nothing nothing NOTHING like San Francisco and the dreaded hour to hour and a half waking he did for THREE STRAIGHT NIGHTS. Which means while we had fun in San Francisco, this actually felt like a REAL vacation - the kind where you actually SLEEP, where you go swimming with your boy, where you hang out with a girlfriend baby-free on a patio sipping strawberry mojitos, and the kind where you actually do some reading, shopping, screaming (over the WICKED deals on sale stuff), and just a whole lotta hangin' out with the husband, and the boy.

But it's also the kind that of course has to END. The kind that needs to be packed up, put away, and just remembered, because in a few short hours, we'll be back to that place where dishes don't magically get done, where laundry actually needs washing, where groceries and diapers and drycleaning need getting...

And it's not that home is bad - home is actually quite awesome right now with summer finally here, no job to go to, and a boy who's made happy by something as simple as bonking a velvet soccer ball off his head. It's just that home is the place where everything has to get DONE, where the stresses are, and where a lot of the time, no matter how hard I try to let shit go, I CAN'T let shit go. Dishes in the sink? Well I should do them! Toys all over the floor? Well I should pick them up! Garden drying up and dying? Well I should water it! And it's all just such trivial shit that really DOESN'T matter in the grand scheme of things, but it's all just such trivial shit that doesn't exist on vacation.

On vacation, the biggest worry is how warm the pool will be or not be. The biggest duty is deciding what to eat for breakfast. The biggest part of being a grown-up is getting that the babysitter IS going to survive even if your child turns back into the devil and screeches all night - it's what she's getting paid to do... keep your child alive and safe, and find a way herself, to survive keeping your child alive and safe.

On vacation, for four AWESOME days, my biggest worry has been how warm the pool will be...

Photo Friday: Unplugged

Coming up with the theme for this Photo Friday was EASY. Deciding what the hell to take a picture OF became an epic battle of epic proportions.

In the end though, I decided on some "old school" hygiene. You know the kind where you actually brush your teeth YOURSELF, instead of using that fancy schmancy electric toothbrush that makes your teeth feel soooo much cleaner? Yea, that kind. That kind I actually indulge in once in a blue moon. That kind where I "unplug" and make the effort to clean my own damn teeth.

Note the speckles on the mirror. You don't get those with electric toothbrushes...