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Sunday, April 24, 2005

Sometimes I'm really jealous of my husband. JP bikes a mile to work every morning, dressed in jeans and some hip, ironic t-shirt (think Monchhichis - yes, there really are three "h"s), toting a backpack and his iPod. He really, really likes his job. And they like him.

His workplace has foosball tables, free coffee and lots of cartoon characters. He sometimes takes 20 minute bathroom breaks. Don't ask me how I know this.

JP takes an improv class, which, of course, he loves, because he's brilliant at it.

When he gets home, Ronan dances in excitement. The two of them rush off to kick a ball or play trains. I attempt to restore a sense of sanity to the house and get a meal onto the table by 6:30. Or I slouch at the table and aimlessly surf the web, unable to override my exhaustion.

I think about taking a class, a part-time job, a regular night out. I need to stop thinking.

Friday, April 22, 2005

The lost toy list:
-the red ball from the pound-a-ball set
-the Little People fireman
-the Little People clown
-the wooden car puzzle piece
-the book Do Zebras Have Spots? (which is a great book for the 18-month set, by the way)

The recently recovered toy list:
-the wooden butter
-two wooden tea bags

The wooden food was found cleverly tucked among the peek-a-blocks in the giraffe after more than a month of searching. Hope springs eternal...
We went to the zoo today. It was overcast and the animals were active. Ronan spent much of the trip saying, "El-phant. El-phant." When we finally, actually reached the elephants, he spent about 30 seconds looking at them. Of course, it's hard to compete with throwing little seed pods over the bamboo fence, which is what he spent almost 20 minutes doing.

Ronan's little friend Lucy was also there. We were all watching the little darting capuchin monkeys. Suddenly Lucy's eyes got huge and she started crying. She obviously got spooked by something. My theory is that the monkeys spoke to her; maybe told her some monkey secret. That would freak me out for sure!

The snow leopards were beautiful and aloof, haughtily ignoring us as they lapped water from the pond. I saw them sizing up Lucy and Ronan out of the corner of their eyes, though. I'm sure our toddlers looked like tasty treats...

Thursday, April 14, 2005

There is no vacation when you have a small child. There is travel. There is screaming and kicking the seat in front of him halfway through an all-night flight. There is dodging the looks of horror and pity from the childless as they board the plane, squeezing past your car seat, diaper bag, rolling suitcase and, of course, thrashing toddler, smug with their ipods and thick novels.

And somehow I was fooling myself that once we arrived at our destination, I would be free of all baby responsibilities. I would be able to sleep late, lounge on the couch, bake complicated, delicious concoctions without "help." I would spend a leisurely afternoon wandering around my alma mater, visit old haunts, browse through the bookstore and enjoy a cup of tea on the Corner.

But Ronan came armed with his usual bag of toddler tricks, and there was no fairy godbabysitter to attend to him.

So instead I spent rollicking mornings wrestling in bed with my husband and my son. I watched as Ronan's grandfather crouched on the floor making choo-choo noises and carefully pushing a wooden train around the track. We wandered through the mall in the middle of the day, letting Ronan set the course as we shared a bowl of ice cream. We visited a chicken coop and laughed as Ronan became obsessed with throwing corn to the chickens. (I'm not sure the chickens will ever recover.)

It wasn't a vacation, but I'm still glad we went.

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