A Special Day

Lately the weekends have felt like a hostage situation. Travis must be exhausted from his week at school because he catches up on all his naps on Saturday and Sunday. He will sleep till 8:30 or 9, up for an hour, back to bed for 3 hours. Then he's up for lunch and play time lasting almost 2 hours, back to bed again for 3 hours. Finally he's up for an extended period of 3 to 4 hours before crashing for the night. So yes in total, he will sleep 13 hours at night and then 6-7 hours during the day. At first I thought it was a growth spurt but I honestly don't think he could grow any more. We work in family outings as best we can. Nicholas still naps for 2 hours in the afternoon. And when I can sync up the afternoon naps - heaven!
Anyways, back to my point. Sometimes there's things we want to do and places to go, as a family. Our choice is to delay naps or to interrupt naps which can result in meltdown city. It can make the outings unpleasant. So what are we to do?
This Saturday we chose to separate. Travis went down for his marathon morning nap, and Adrian parked himself for all-you-can-watch manly TV. Tour de France for the most part (Nicholas called it Turtle Fonts. It took several tries to translate that one!). Nicholas and I went on a special outing, just the two of us, reminiscent of pre-Travis days.

• Farmer's Market at North Hills: It's a small market of about a dozen or so tents. And a bluegrass band playing outside the Starbucks/Ben & Jerry's building. We bought another sunflower, one cucumber, and one good sized zucchini. I made mental notes of the loaves of bread, peppers, and hand made soaps for next time.
• Lassiter Falls: It looked different than it did 10 years ago. A lot of trees and brush had grown blocking off what used to be a more beach-like observation area. And some sort of work is being done at the dam, orange fencing and large pipes lying around. We found a safe vantage point. While I was let down by the falls not matching my memories, Nicholas was very pleased. He liked the rushing water over the dam, through the holes, and asked lots of questions. He was certain ducks would enjoy going over the falls.
• Sertoma Park and Shelley Lake: We went to the playground first. The slides were still hot enough that Nicholas stuck with the tube slide. He tried climbing a ladder instead of taking the stairs. After he figured it out and was feeling confident my nerves settled, a little, just a little. Since we were on our own I let him be in charge of time. He did several rounds of up the ladder, across the bridge, down the stairs, again and again. Then he wanted to see the lake and ducks. Another family with an extroverted daughter a little older than Nicholas offered to share their loaf of bread. He had a blast throwing pieces of bread to the Pavlov ducks and geese. After all this activity he was sweaty and cute with his cheeks all red. We wanted water, cold water.
• Bruegger's Bagels: I have a weakness for a sundried tomato bagel, chicken salad, lettuce and tomato. And luckily tomatoes are available again and deemed safe by the FDA. We sat and had our lunch together. Nicholas went for the unadventurous option - plain bagel, plain cream cheese. We took our cue from the arrival of a pre-teen girl soccer team, and headed home fed and hydrated.

We were home just in time for Travis to get up for lunch. Then both boys went down for afternoon nap. What a good and filling day with my first born. :)