So here I am, on a plane headed to San Francisco. I’ve never been to San Francisco, interestingly enough. Seems that every time an employer wanted me to go I was pregnant or I had another trip planned or something like that.
I’ve done all the weird little flying rituals that I have – I have my scarab beetle necklace on, I’ve eaten 2 red Starbursts and 1 orange one on takeoff. I originally had an aisle seat but dutifully traded another passenger for her window seat, as that is another requirement (a window seat, not trading). So far we have not crashed and things are looking good.
As I’m looking out at the farms scrubbed out of the snow below, I’m thinking about the kids and Lali and missing home. I wish I wasn’t such a homebody! Why am I so damn introverted? This is good though, for me to take a little break from the kids. I was getting a little Mommy Dearest-ish.
Last Saturday was a very good example of a typical event in my house. Alex wanted to take Gus to the park. I helped Gus get into all of his snowgear and watched him trundle off behind Al for the 2 block walk to the playground. After about 20 minutes, I saw Alex stomping up the sidewalk, yelling, with Gus trailing behind, arms flapping and wailing. “Awesome,” I thought. As I was opening the garage door to welcome the hot mess, Lali shot out of the door. She typically stays right around the kids, all tail waggy, happy dog. But this time she didn’t. She formed her body into a cylindrical furry form with her ears back and her nose pointed forward and RAN. Man, she can run. Alex and I started to give chase and I yelled back to Gus to go inside. Alex and I had a moment of perfect sync, and she ran around one side of a snowbank and I ran around the other side while I threateningly (I hoped) said, “NO LALI, SIT.” And she sat.
As I was dragging Lali by her collar up the street, I looked at Gus… He was standing in the driveway, shivering and snow covered with his underwear, pants and snowpants down to his shins, where they met his boots. “What thehell?” I said to Al and she said, “Yeah, mom, he wanted to pee in the bushes but he couldn’t get his pants off fast enough so he wet his pants. He got upset and pulled his pants all the way down and that’s how we walked home.” Dear God. Alex penguin-walked Gus for 2.5 blocks at 3:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday.
It was kind of like Gus’ version of Commando. Really Commando. I proceeded to help him get his clothes off and into the bathtub and kept questioning him on why in the world he would do that and then not go inside as I asked. He kept saying he wanted to pee in the bushes. I suppose he’s a boy, and every boy wants to pee in the bushes sometime…
So yeah. I’m headed out of town for a week and I think I was ready for a break.
Alex is so easy to love, but I have to admit, I LOVE Gus' personality. He's just so HIMSELF! Of course, I'm not dealing with him day to day. Good luck with that!
Posted by: Mom | February 22, 2010 at 04:35 PM