Beach Day

I started this day fantasizing about screaming "shut the F up!!!" at my crying child. I said fantasizing, not actually doing. Now I'm kind of horrified that I even thought that. I blame my (at the time) sleep-deprived brain. But my morning routine, after working for a while, is now no longer working. So once again I'm going to have to mix it up. What happens is I put B in the playpen when he wakes up at 6 AM so I can (try to) sleep a little longer. This worked famously when we were still nursing. Now...not so much. We haven't nursed in way over a week and he's gotten increasingly fussy about the morning playpen visit until today he was just hysterical. And I was so, so tired. Normally we have a nice leisurely breakfast when I finally drag my still exhausted carcass out of bed. But I think I'm going to have to do breakfast at 6. Snacks don't cut it; I think he's hungry for real food. Once he's eaten he's happy in the playpen for ages. So I will try it tomorrow, making breakfast at 6 and then trying to go back to bed. It's going to suck. But I absolutely, positively cannot start my day at 6 AM. Not when 5-10 times a month my days end at midnight or later. No sir. So if I can fool myself into thinking I'm getting a morning nap, then, there you go. 

I had already determined with today's projected triple digit temperatures that we were having a beach day. And so we did, and it was a lot less stressful than I had anticipated. The last time we went to the beach he was barely mobile at six months; this time I had visions of him crawling into the sea while simultaneously shoving sand and cigarette butts into his mouth and repeatedly ripping his hat off his head and getting third degree burns on his pasty skin. Only a couple of those things happened. He did eat a certain amount of sand (no cigarette butts, thank goodness), and ripped his hat off a lot, but he also kept it on a lot, too, and thankfully stayed in the shade with me most of the time. I thought to pick up a cheap plastic bucket play set on the way, and boy am I glad I did! Hours of entertainment. It would have been very different had I not brought anything for him to do. Never underestimate the power of toys for children!

So now on to what I don't want to talk about - yesterday. I did have a nice meeting with the "thinker" SMC. But that was my only plan for the day, and with it being blistering hot again, the playroom and our walk were out. And it was too late to go to the beach by the time my meeting was over, so I really had nothing to do but sit around and avoid Facebook like the plague. I don't know why this year was suddenly so hard on me - I mean, everything's fine, I have a baby, my mother and I do have a cordial relationship (she even sent me an e-card), so what the hell is my problem? I don't know. I just felt out of sorts. It's my own fault for not making plans. I hate, hate, hate not having plans on the weekend. It makes me feel like a big loser. But honestly I don't know how I could do it differently in the future. It's just a day everyone's busy with their families, and unlike Christmas or Thanksgiving it's not the kind of holiday non-relatives are welcome to join in. So it's kind of destined to be a lonely day for me, I think. Boo.