Mama says there'll be days like these...

I had one of those days yesterday.  You know the kind that you sort of want to forget, but really all you can do is laugh because, after all, isn't this life?  And someday, won't I want to remember the day Finn went streaking 3 times?

I got my early morning workout in.  I met my lovely friend for a walk and chat before the heat of the day made exercise impossible.  I gardened and gardened and gardened, pulling overgrown plants that I'd wanted to remove for weeks now, tending all the little radish and cucumber and squash shoots, feeling relatively proud of my little peas that are starting to make their presence known.  Weeding and watering, weeding and watering.  My hands and legs and feet were a crusty, muddy mess, my back was sunburned and my hair had a tree's worth of sticks tangled up in it.  I may have gotten a little absorbed in my task.

Finn, however, felt that being naked was more his style yesterday.  I glanced up from digging a huge cluster of overgrown something out of the garden, only to see little pink buns race past me.  Luckily our back yard is pretty well shielded from the street, but I dropped my shovel quickly and chased down my little exhibitionist. I explained that we need to keep clothes on when we are outside, re-dressed him, and went back about my business.  I was huffing and puffing and trying to get my shovel all the way under the root cluster (because I do not want these things back!) and I looked up to find Finn - naked again - in the bird bath (it's actually an in-ground water fountain, but we call it a bird bath.  It's not very big, so really, he was only wet up to his knees from splashing, but he had his little naked buns sitting on a nice warm rock).  I plucked him from the water, reminded him again that we need to have clothes on when we're outside, and sent him on his way to make a construction site in the sandbox.

I went back to my digging and sweating and cursing the blasted root systems that are found in nature, when it occurred to me that I couldn't hear construction site "noises."  In fact, I didn't hear anything.  I walked around the side of the house - no Finn in the sandbox.  I walked all the way around the house.  No Finn anywhere.  I walked into the house, and the minute I opened the door, I heard a little voice say: "Just go back outside, Mama.  I'm making a snack."

And there he was, standing on his stool at the counter, half a loaf of bread spread out before him, pouring pancake syrup all over it.  Stark naked.

The appliance repair man came to fix the dishwasher - thankfully, Finn was fully clothed at the time and remained so for the duration of his visit.  The dishwasher started up immediately for him, I'm assuming just to screw with me.  I almost had a heart attack, partly because I couldn't believe it had started and partly because I was excited to bypass that bill.  Unfortunately, it stopped almost as quickly as it started, but after an hour of fiddling around and doing appliancey-things, it's now fixed and we are back to the convenience of a dishwasher.

Our baby-sitter showed up about the same time Uriah got home from work and declared that he still needed to take a shower before we could leave.  All of the power went out in Canal Park, where we wanted to have dinner.  We couldn't find a gift at the toy store down there, so we ended up having to trek up the hill to Target.  We thought about having dinner at a neighborhood place that had been recommended to Uriah, but upon being seated and looking at the menu, we both decided we wanted something different so we got up and left (something I have never done before, and honestly felt a little bit bad about doing, but there was nothing on the menu that appealed to me).  We headed back down to Canal Park to see if the power was back on.  It was hit or miss at most restaurants, the wait was long and everyone was crabby, so we headed back up the shore toward home and had dinner at Clearwater Grille.  At about 8:15.  It wasn't bad, but after sitting on the patio for 10 minutes, it started to sprinkle and the wind picked up, so we headed inside to finish our dinner.

I demanded a date-night redux, which we will need to accomplish before our baby-sitter leaves for college in the fall.  If we go on a quick date within 15 minutes of home, we usually leave Abby in charge of Finn.  However, we do hire a baby-sitter for Finn when we head into Duluth for our date, since that puts us a minimum of 30 minutes away from home, longer if we have to head up the hill.  If something were to happen, Abby is obviously not able to drive yet, so we tend to err on the side of caution and leave him with someone who could schlep him to the ER if necessary.  



Blast from the past:
My little one-year-old chubby lump, back when morning and afternoon naps were necessary. | August 2011