Get Outside Every Day

I read this or heard this a long time ago. Lately, it is imperative that I remember this and act on this bit of advice. IMPERATIVE.

It is February. Although this is a short month, it has been a tough month for me historically. 2010-- I am staying at home with a little one. I do not have a car most days and even when I do, I am home from 12-3 every day for a little one's nap. On top of that, it is crazy cold and who wants to drag a little kid in and out of a car seat and into Target and Meijer's for the sake of a bargain on baby butt wipes all the while sweating profusely in a down coat? Not this mama.

Solution: Get Outside Every Day

The big one usually has a rough transition at the end of her school day. Even when I greet her at the door with a smile and favorite snack in hand, there is inevitably a certain amount of shrieking and tears. Yesterday, Little Bro and I met her at the door in our snow gear and ready for some serious snow play. It was not as cold as it had been (a balmy 28 degrees) so we pulled the old wool socks up to Tommy's elbows and tackled the crunchy sticky snow--- the best packing and sledding snow I have seen yet this season.
These photos were all taken in our backyard. Yes, our very own backyard.

After 7 years of life on a nasty, pot-holey alley within spitting distance of one's neighbors, the magic of having a small stand of woods in our own backyard is not lost on me. We go "adventuring" and "hiking" all the way to the top of hill (where we meet the backyard fences of the mansions at the top of the hill/other side of the tracks). We have picnics in the snow. We look for fairy houses and toads.

And on cold gray days in February, we build tiny little snow people with baby carrots for noses.

The Best 4th (and 5th) of July Ever

Let me begin by saying that this holiday does not carry the kind of expectations that other holidays do for me. I kind of hate fireworks. Sure, they are pretty and all but I generally consider them a colossal waste of money and would rather just get together for a cook-out without the forced need to stay up past dark (10:30pm in these parts) and run the risk of a late night visit to the ER with your drunk Uncle Mickey who was trying to show off.

Since we bought this house in 2003, my loathing for the alleged "holiday" has grown. Our neighbors don't just blow up things for the hour or two on either side of dusk on the 4th itself. The folks in this neighborhood blow up things for weeks preceding the 4th and do it all night long. You'll be lying there asleep after hours of it and some punter will start up again at 3:30am complete with howling and applause for himself. My anger at this behavior was only made worse in recent years by the birth of our child for whom I expect complete and total silence after 7:30pm EVERY night, I don't care how close we are to Indiana and its loosey-goosey fireworks laws!

This year, I suggested a camping trip but the Papa did not bite. Understandably, he did not want to brave a different kind of idiocy---drunk, late night camping idiocy with only a thin nylon sheet separating you from the revelers.

Mid-week, we had this fabulous idea! We decided to invite ourselves to our friend's house in the country for dinner and camp in his back yard! This friend, Steven, and I played phone tag all week and in the end, we headed out to his place on the afternoon of the 4th (after a fun-filled day of bike-riding and swinging--see below). As it turns out, this normally anti-social bachelor had invited all sorts of people and we ended up with a rollicking party on his back deck. Pesto minutes fresh from the garden, sweet peas, brats, chicken on the grill, watermelon and of course, L's first taste of the heaven that is s'mores.

This is a picture of L being helped by my friend Sheila who claims to really hate kids. Whatever, Sheila: I have proof and it is going out all over cyberspace.

The evening of the 4th was a hugely successful good time. We headed to bed just as L seemed to be hitting that comatose stage when I normally anticipate full meltdown. We got bundled up and zipped ourselves in the tent, watched the sunset out of the mesh window, listened to the beginning of the fireworks craziness and fell asleep. I was a little concerned that my little creature of habit would struggle getting to sleep without her Bath Snack Book routine but we just held hands and snuggled and she was out before the real craziness began.

I think I thought folks out in the country didn't do fireworks. WRONG! Our friend Steven lives out there in the POBox-only country (as opposed to developed-subdivison-on-old-farmland country) and folks had PLENTY of illegal fireworks. The great thing was they shot them all off at dusk or close to it so there were done by 11:30 or so. No Vine Neighborhood TET Offensive to which I had grown accustomed. We all slept well all night long (with the exception of Papa's bouts of tent-induced claustrophobia but that is another blog).

We woke to a beautiful sunny, misty morning. L squatted in the field for her morning pee (I get a huge kick out of the fact that she is a pro at squatting to pee in outdoorsy settings). Blue the Dog came to visit us early. We followed her down to the house with the intention of asking Steven to join us at a nearby greasy spoon for breakfast but he was already cooking the bacon! Seriously, free camping in a gorgeous setting and then breakfast served! DEFINITELY the best set-up a lazy car camper could ask for! (The following photos capture the early morning mist.)

L and I started picking black raspberries and packing things up (this mostly consisted of moving all the dew-soaked stuff to sunny spots for drying) while Steven made us all bacon, fried potatoes (in bacon grease) and scrambled eggs with herbs fresh from the garden. L got to help pick the herbs and find frogs and hug Blue the Dog a lot and try to catch Mia the Cat.

All in all, I think the best part of it was watching her little self head up the hill (with just Blue by her side) knowing that the worst that might happen would be a bug bite or a scratch. Raising a kid in the city wears on me sometimes and it was so wonderful to watch her be so free and safe and enjoying every second of all that nature has to offer her.