In the Rain

So I know I said that I would write next about getting to church carless, but I changed my mind and instead wanted to talk about all the crazy things Jackson and I are getting ourselves into.

First I think its worth noting that sometimes being a Stay-at-Home-Mom is really hard. Once Jackson was born I dreamt about what it would be like to be able to stay at home with him full-time and not have to shuffle him between mine and Justin's class and work schedules. In my mind I had it all planned out we would color, read, go to the park and just play together all day every day. Our days would be filled with laughter, learning and just plain old fun. Yes I did think about diaper duty and the fact that Jackson and I would probably drive each other crazy sometimes and maybe I was a little naive about the whole thing, not realizing how hard draining it is sometimes.

Some days are pretty much perfect and I love being home with Jackson and we really do just have 'plain old fun', and those are usually the days when he takes a nap for me. But lately he has been refusing to nap and on those days I literally want to cry and scream and pull my hair out and I'm sure Jackson does too. Actually sometimes he does, but usually its pulling my hair, not his. =) Well yesterday was one of those days.

A friend and her 15-month-old son came over in the morning, which was pretty fun, even though Jackson wasn't playing very nice. After they left it was nap time, which of course Jackson refused. He sleeps in a toddler bed now and usually he is pretty good about staying in bed, I mean of course he gets out and plays sometimes, but then when he is tired enough he gets in bed and goes to sleep. Well not yesterday. He stayed in his room for about 10 minutes and then began banging on the door with his shoes! I don't know how he figured that out, but what a smarty pants, it was so loud I could not ignore it, which I sometimes do. We continued to try nap time for the next hour and then gave up. It was so hot outside that going out wasn't an option so we tried to find things to do inside, but all that ended up happening was Jackson dumped out a box of 97 crayons, stepped on a few breaking them in pieces and then drew all over my (and his) arms, I'm actually still slightly purple today. He even found the scissors and gleefully ran them through the house while I desperately chased him down before he poked his eye out or stabbed any of the furniture...yikes.

We had an early dinner, and yes a frozen pizza counts as a dinner, especially if it is a veggie pizza, and then decided that we didn't care about the budget anymore and headed to Walmart/Michael's/The Dollar Store to find some crafty things for us to do indoors. We caught the bus no problem and got off at the stop nearest Walmart, which is about 1/2-3/4 mile away. After walking through a reptile pet store, which Jackson both loved and hated we headed to Walmart. Shopping was actually pretty uneventful and Jackson was just about as perfect as a baby can be in a store. He sat nicely in his stroller just watching the people and toys pass him by. We ended up buying side walk chalk, paints (water colors and finger paints), coloring books, play dough, a sketch pad, a bucket of miscellaneous craft supplies and some fake flowers for the house.

As we were checking out we saw the sprinkles starting so we finished our purchase and literally started running once we hit the pavement outside. By the way we do have an umbrella, 3 actually, but for some unknown reason I actually took it out of the diaper bag before we left...won't be doing that again. We were at Michael's, which is about 1/4 of a mile past Walmart and we made it to Walmart just as it was starting to down pour and I mean like torrential rain, as in literally walk in it for 10 seconds and your soaked all the way through. Those of you from Utah who have really never seen a good rain storm because they do not exist there, may not realize the magnitude of this rain storm, but it was crazy. Luckily we were only a little bit wet, however it was past 8pm and we couldn't exactly sit in Walmart all night we had to catch the bus. So we went to the umbrella section and bought the biggest one they had and headed out. I covered Jackson's legs in plastic bags because no matter how I held the umbrella they still stuck out. I'm sure we looked ridiculous, but it worked. The rain did let up a LOT, but it was still raining as we very slowly made our way to the bus. Its pretty tricky pushing a stroller while strategically holding an umbrella to make sure you, your baby and all your new purchases stay dry. I ended up giving up on keeping myself dry and just stuck the umbrella over the stroller to keep Jackson and our goods dry.

Well as we were about to cross the street to get to our stop the bus pulled up and we missed it...bummer. Next bus 25 minutes. I thought about just walking home, but wasn't sure what the rain would do and I didn't want to get caught in another down pour so we just waited. I put a plastic bag on the ground and sat on it and positioned the umbrella over Jackson and we just sat and waited. It looked like a tent was set up by the bus stop. You couldn't see the stroller or I unless you peeked under the umbrella, which several people actually did. Again Jackson did beautifully. He did ask to get out several times, but because by this time it was dark and still raining I told him that he couldn't get out so we had fun pointing out the different vehicles that went by. I actually had to tilt the umbrella up so we could see the road, just to give you a better idea of what we looked like...ridiculous...welcome to my life.

The bus got there about 8:45pm and by this time the rain had almost completely stopped. The ride was uneventful and we got off at our stop with no major problems. Jackson decided he did not want any part of getting back in the stroller because little boys can only sit for so long so he walked beside me, while I pushed the stroller full of goodies for another day.

Oh the life of a mother.