Frogs on Skates
Adam is back from his travels and life is back to the way it's always been. You know, loud, chaotic, and messy. But with nightly relief for me. Just like it's supposed to be.
Today Doodles and I had one of those perfect New England days that make me happy we live here. The weather is turning nice, with highs in the midforties, which is exactly where I like my winters to hang out. Doodles has school vacation week (and this February vacation week is new to me; growing up we had spring break in--surprise!--spring. How did New England folks get this extra week? I don't think it's a very Puritan thing to do!) but Pie's daycare is still open, so we had a special Mommy/Doodles Day.
First thing we did was take the T into the city. And we could have ended things right there. Doodles stared out that window into black nothingness (because, as I pointed out to him many times, the whole point of a subway is the sub part) with absolute rapt fascination. When we exited the train, he wanted to just stand there and watch the trains come and go, until I reminded him that we'd be going home on the subway as well.
Heading out into daylight, we walked through Boston Common on a mission to the Frog Pond. And while he was a little tentative about the frog statues at the end, he was extremely excited about ice skating outside. Oh the wonder of it! He went around by himself a couple of times and then wanted to skate holding hands so he could actually glide (in his ice skating lessons, they're teaching him to first sort of walk/skate on the ice). Which was really fun, but given that it was my second time ice skating, a little challenging for me (hey, I'm a Beach gal! Great swimmer, not so great at winter sports). We were going pretty slowly, but I'm guessing I'll have some nice soreness tomorrow.
(Rant: Doodles is actually pretty decent on the skates, and there were a ton of kids out there that were clearly very new skaters--going down every step or two. But Doodles and I were one of only four people [out of over a hundred] wearing a helmet. Doodles asked why no one else was wearing a helmet and he seemed to accept my answer: "They're not very smart." Although, now that I think about it, one of the groups was a YMCA group, so perhaps the parents didn't think about it when they sent their kids off, much like my mother didn't think I'd be humiliated and traumatized for life when she sent me on a fishing field trip with my YMCA group and outfitted me with, basically, a string on a broom handle [think Curious George], but you don't really want to hear about that--I'll save it for when I go back into therapy.)
We skated for just over an hour, then went and had pizza for lunch. Walked around a little. Took the T back. Hit a Starbucks for hot chocolate. Doodles was so worn out, he actually told me he was sleepy and took an hour nap (I had to wake him to pick up the Pie).
Of course, the Pie undid all my happiness with her nightly temper tantrum. For the first time, it started at school (as I tried to get a jacket on her), and her teacher looked surprised and said, "We've never seen this Pie before!" Great. That's it. She uses up all the good stuff at school. No, no, we did have some good moments at home, especially in her pre-bath naked strut that is just the cutest thing. Although she did get ejected from the bath after the fifth time I told her she couldn't drink the bath water and she just smiled at me, stuck her face down, and took a big gulp. And then had another temper tantrum. Doodles and I had the perfect New England day. And Pie is preparing to be the perfect New England Red Sox fan. A Boston day all around.
Today Doodles and I had one of those perfect New England days that make me happy we live here. The weather is turning nice, with highs in the midforties, which is exactly where I like my winters to hang out. Doodles has school vacation week (and this February vacation week is new to me; growing up we had spring break in--surprise!--spring. How did New England folks get this extra week? I don't think it's a very Puritan thing to do!) but Pie's daycare is still open, so we had a special Mommy/Doodles Day.
First thing we did was take the T into the city. And we could have ended things right there. Doodles stared out that window into black nothingness (because, as I pointed out to him many times, the whole point of a subway is the sub part) with absolute rapt fascination. When we exited the train, he wanted to just stand there and watch the trains come and go, until I reminded him that we'd be going home on the subway as well.
Heading out into daylight, we walked through Boston Common on a mission to the Frog Pond. And while he was a little tentative about the frog statues at the end, he was extremely excited about ice skating outside. Oh the wonder of it! He went around by himself a couple of times and then wanted to skate holding hands so he could actually glide (in his ice skating lessons, they're teaching him to first sort of walk/skate on the ice). Which was really fun, but given that it was my second time ice skating, a little challenging for me (hey, I'm a Beach gal! Great swimmer, not so great at winter sports). We were going pretty slowly, but I'm guessing I'll have some nice soreness tomorrow.
(Rant: Doodles is actually pretty decent on the skates, and there were a ton of kids out there that were clearly very new skaters--going down every step or two. But Doodles and I were one of only four people [out of over a hundred] wearing a helmet. Doodles asked why no one else was wearing a helmet and he seemed to accept my answer: "They're not very smart." Although, now that I think about it, one of the groups was a YMCA group, so perhaps the parents didn't think about it when they sent their kids off, much like my mother didn't think I'd be humiliated and traumatized for life when she sent me on a fishing field trip with my YMCA group and outfitted me with, basically, a string on a broom handle [think Curious George], but you don't really want to hear about that--I'll save it for when I go back into therapy.)
We skated for just over an hour, then went and had pizza for lunch. Walked around a little. Took the T back. Hit a Starbucks for hot chocolate. Doodles was so worn out, he actually told me he was sleepy and took an hour nap (I had to wake him to pick up the Pie).
Of course, the Pie undid all my happiness with her nightly temper tantrum. For the first time, it started at school (as I tried to get a jacket on her), and her teacher looked surprised and said, "We've never seen this Pie before!" Great. That's it. She uses up all the good stuff at school. No, no, we did have some good moments at home, especially in her pre-bath naked strut that is just the cutest thing. Although she did get ejected from the bath after the fifth time I told her she couldn't drink the bath water and she just smiled at me, stuck her face down, and took a big gulp. And then had another temper tantrum. Doodles and I had the perfect New England day. And Pie is preparing to be the perfect New England Red Sox fan. A Boston day all around.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home