The joy of shopping alone

So I was just sitting down to work on a post for today, and Lindsay asked me to go out shopping and to make some photocopies. With Addison. Lindsay's really tired today, so I'm doing my best to work up some enthusiasm to help her out. Well, maybe I'm not doing my best; maybe it's about 70%. I agreed to go but my smile was pretty obviously forced. See, I'm usually the one who goes shopping with the kid, but I like to mentally prepare for it. I'm not one of those parents who just throws things together at the last minute. It's one of the things Lindsay loves most about me.

While Lindsay was gone with Addison on "vacation" before I flew out to meet her, I had the opportunity to go shopping alone. It was incredible.

My daughter, who wishes she was a dog

The family reunion we've just returned from was only two hours away, thank goodness. All considered, it wasn't too bad. Not as bad as the drive from the last family reunion. We had family bonding, time-outs every ten minutes because our sweet, uber-social daughter has recently decided to be a hitter, lots of good food, and lots of Olympics-watching.

The Olympics as a nostalgia machine

I remember crouching at the starting line, my naked pimply shoulders tight against the next boy's, our flimsy jerseys held up by tiny shoulder straps, our shorts as short as anything you'd see on a girl, with legs that sprouted twig-like out of them, knots for our knees. We shifted anxiously like nervous wildebeests, unsettled by a strange scent in the air, our ears all perking in the same direction.

I remember setting my foot near the painted white line, and inching it forward so that it almost touched the nominal barrier that stood between us and 400 meters of burning legs and lungs, as though an extra half-centimeter could make all the difference.

I remember the tightening of anticipation in my chest and gut. I remember the sudden awareness of my own heartbeat, pulsing first through my head -- I could hear it in my ears -- and then rippling from that epicenter down through my shoulders, to my torso, my fingers, my legs, and the resulting jitters from the increased pressure, like what happens when a hose squirms as it erupts water. I remember blood and adrenaline mixing into a volatile fuel that would drive my piston legs for the next 58 seconds.

I remember the BANG!, the clipped roar of a predator, and our herd exploding forward. Like a single organism we rounded the first turn, and then as we entered the straightaway, separated slightly into our individual components, into the clumped islands of an archipelago. There was usually one lone runner, a straggler at the end, the last to re-cross the painted white line. Sometimes it was me, and I am okay with that. It was 58 seconds of pure effort, of approaching the finish feeling the numbness in my thighs and calves, knowing that I'd used up everything in me, no regrets remaining.

Vacation times infinity

We're heading off to Big Bear today for another reunion. Thank goodness it's only two hours away and not twelve. But if Addison decides to have another two hour screaming fit, I'm going to be seriously ticked.

So, there are all sorts of good, friendly people who I've been seeing over the last couple weeks, people that would feel bad if they thought I didn't like them. I'm appreciative of my family, of my in-laws, of cousins and friends who we don't often get to see...but I guess I'm just a person who needs this stuff in small doses. Does anyone ever believe it when you say, "It's not you, it's me." The fact is, I'm a social recluse, and all these get-togethers tax me, just like that scene in Spiderman 2 where Toby is virtually pulled apart while trying to hold on to two train cars at once. I'm drawing on reserves that are gonna take a long time to fill up again. Maybe until 2014.

At least when we get to Big Bear we get to stay in one place, and we don't have to relocate all of our things every two days. And it'll be a heck of a lot cooler there than it was today in SoCal. See, I'm trying to look on the bright side. My wife is rolling her eyes with a "get over yourself" look.

See you on the other side...

Things we cram my daughter in

In honor of surviving our road trip home, in which Addison endured being strapped into a tiny chair and only screamed bloody murder for an hour or two, this post is about the little things that she can fit into. Simply put, my daughter's three-foot-tall frame is perfect for fitting into tiny places. And it means she's an excellent hider, which my wife wrote about here.

In the first couple days of her life, Addison had to get used to sleeping in the "box," a fun contraption for jaundiced babies.

On suffering through the road trip

15 minutes into most road trips, my daughter and I are about equally interested in getting out, and getting out NOW. Addison is not a container baby, and she lets that fact be known. Loudly. I sometimes see parents whose infants are fast asleep in a portable car seat in the basket of a grocery cart, or maybe the little tyke is slumbering delicately in its mother's arms while mom chats casually with a friend. How nice that would be. It's probably good I have no idea how to put a car together (much less a car seat), because a rocket-powered escape route for my daughter is probably one of the first things I'd get started on. It wouldn't be child abuse; I'd give her a parachute.

I'm pretty jealous of the parents whose kids mostly sit quietly in the back seat, reading books, or singing songs to themselves, or napping (oh, that our daughter would nap in the car! It makes me tear up a little imagining how beautiful that would be).

We get on the road again tomorrow. It'll be about a 7.5 hour trip back to California. It's times like these that I wish I had a prescription for Zoloft or Xanax, or some other med with a strong Z sound.

At least she's pretty cute whenever she's out of her car seat. It's her saving grace. Here she is teasing us:

It's like she's saying, "see dad, this is what road trips could be like. Calmly reading the paper, all proper and sophisticated. I mean, IF I WERE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT KID."

Here she is faking a nap. That's the best we can hope for.

 

And this is about two seconds later. That is not a cry of joy. And as long as we're in the car, it's pretty constant.

 

I don't suppose I can blame her. I wouldn't want to be strapped into a stress-position torture device like this either. Don't worry kid, we'll be home soon. By all that's good and decent, please let us get home soon.

The ocean = gross

I’ve been thinking more and more about this with all the posts that people are putting up about their summer trips and days at the beach and such.

The ocean is beautiful. Powerful. Mysterious. It is the ocean as an intensely rich metaphor that makes Moby-Dick the greatest novel I have ever read. However, the ocean is also full of yuck.