Yesterday, I took the kids to my dad’s house and we went swimming at a pool near his house. Just leaving the house for the afternoon with a 1 year old requires packing. Add in potential swimming and I start to wonder how much I really want to go. Because I’m lazy. And I forget things. And I don’t understand how the rest of the world travels all over the place with small children because mine are just so much work outside the confines of our house. Technically they’re a lot of work within the confines of our home, too. But we own the walls in this place so if they scribble on them we don’t owe anyone anything.
Among the more high maintenance elements of traveling with my children is all the close monitoring they require. My dad’s house has stairs. They’re like baby catnip or something. Going up seems to be the real attraction. My dad solves this problem by sitting at the bottom of the stairs reading National Geographic for an hour. I’ve been a parent long enough to immediately categorize that as a short term solution. For example, what about when you need to go to the bathroom? I prefer to drag an end table over and create a blockade. I even shove some pillows in the little gap that’s left so nobody gets any bright ideas. I’m not saying it’s an impenetrable fortress. But if it gives me some lead time to flush the toilet, then it’s what I like to call, “Good enough.”
Coming home requires packing too. Doing the little once over checking for random items. Especially sippy cups. Under the couch. Behind a chair. Right in front of my nose. I wish they would invent a sippy cup attachment that lets you clap to find them. I discovered one the other day in the bottom of a hamper full of solidified milk. If they can invent battery operated crap to stick to food containers to tell you how old it is, the disappearing sippy cup phenomenon seems easy to fix.
And since we’re on the subject of sippy cups, why do the sippy cup makers not sell extra lids? I guess because they know I’ll just buy more cups to get the lids. But I don’t want the cups. All I want are the lids. I realize that they’ve got me between a rock and a hard place. I get that I’m at their mercy. So can’t they just hike the price of the replacement lids and be done with it already. My cabinets can’t hold anymore sippy cups. They’re falling out of the cabinet at us as it is. Lids, people. Lids. Get with it.
8 comments:
We are so living parallel lives. Those are the exact reasons we have missed 3 out of 9 swimming lessons.
exactly! Much easier just to stay home
and YEAH, why not sell just the lids? They are cornering the market thats why, they know we will have to buy th stupid cup to get the lid, or even the straw insert we need.
Haha! I'm laughing because I did the "swim at the pool" trip to a friend's house 45 minutes away, and I felt like we were *moving* with all the stuff I had to bring....
Okay, so you are completely cracking me up. Darned sippy cup conspiracy! And hey, thanks for visiting my blog! Have I mentioned that you really crack me up?
Ya know, I am feeling more and more like this lately, like it just doesn't feel worth the huge effort to go do fun outings. And then Ben and Clara start climbing the walls again, and we start packing.
AND I was just whining about the sippy cup lid situation just the other day. Would it be so hard??
Thanks. I really do weigh how much I want to go to something versus the amount of time and trouble it will be. And I played the find a lid game again this morning. I actually thought about putting sippy cups on the grocery list. Except I just bought cups like three weeks ago. So where did those lids go? Crazy.
The sippy cup lid problem. We suffer from that here as well. It is seemingly an easy problem to fix since they even sell the little valves separately, but they can't sell a lid (or two) with out the $8 cup with it?
I relate on the lack of motivation. Seems like such an ordeal to get my four out the door, that by the time we make it TO our destination, I am exhausted and ready to head home (strollers, diaper bags, booster seats, fighting in the car, etc!!), but they are just getting started. After a few years of this, one begins to forsee this and asks oneself: "Do we really want to do this?"...Great post. I truly relate and I enjoyed the sippy cup comments. SO true, girl. So true.
I didn't even know they sell the valves separately. Good to know. And yeah, it's a testament to how long you've been a parent when you start deciding an outing won't be worth the time and trouble.
Post a Comment