Yesterday was a family day. I took a break from thinking about summer camps (Job 1) and from thinking about orcs and vampires (Job 2) to focus on the more important things in life. Yeah, I’m getting all sentimental over the Mrs. and the boy.
Summer is a busy time for all of us. Soon I’ll be starting the rotation where five days out of every eight I will be in the mountains doing my part to ensure that 1300 kids have an awesome experience. And at least one day out of the three that I am in Tokyo needs to be spent partly chained to my computer so I don’t get too far behind in the more author-type-stuff that I have to do.
And the rest of the time, I’m going to try and spend with this little guy and his fabulous Mom.
Can you blame me? I’m am 100% infected with that sickness that makes most parents just want to sing the praises of their kids. Or tell you how exhausting they are. Or both at the same time.
That is certainly the way it is keeping up with this little dude. He is just over two years old and has the energy to make his mom and dad collapse into a puddle of shame. We do our best to keep up with the dances and the songs and the playing. WE want to keep up so much, but he tends to win most of the days.
Yesterday started around 6:30. I can’t even remember if it was me or the Mrs. who took point, but we traded off getting ready and trying to breakfast and rest until the three of us went out around 11. We had plans with friends from daycare and their little girl. There is was an all day play-a-thon with us four adults trying to keep up.
Around 6pm, it was time to get a move on. The Mrs. and I were faced with the dilemma of what should we do with our boy? He hadn’t had a nap, so if he fell asleep he might wake up just when we were ready for bed. But what if he just drifted off? What then.
We ended up not needing to worry about it. He eagerly took us by the hands and the three of us practically went skipping down the streets of Shinjuku. And those are some crowded streets.
It was great watching him play with his friend. Part of it was even better seeing how much fun he had just with Mommy and Daddy. We cruised around and got some shopping done. Again I was reminded of how different his first town is than mine, which was so small we didn’t even have a full-on stoplight. Just a light that blinked red. Tokyo has considerably more.
During the shopping he and I hung out for a little while and looked at legos. Fortunately he didn’t really get they were toys we could by them, but that they were part of a little moving diorama. He liked pushing the buttons and seeing the lights turn on. And then he would dance a bit and I would try and keep from crying at how beautiful he is to me.
As tiredness truly set in he started to get a little fussy, but when we got him settled into his stroller, he soon fell asleep. And then it was just me and the Mrs. doing our best to talk about adult things even though the conversation kept returning to our little guy.
We finally returned home about eleven hours after leaving it. My last Daddy Duty of the night was to carry him from the stroller to his bed. There are moments when you pick up a sleeping child and all their weight goes on to you and they kind of squeeze, but not really as a hug. Just a little comfort.
Those moments, where I feel I can protect him from anything, are magic.
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Deadly Troubadour 