It’s just past noon in sunny Lake Tahoe and I’m watching Cars 2 with Babyman, blogging, and having a mimosa. No complaints here (besides Babyman, who at present is calling the landscaper a bad guy! for daring to mow the lawn during movie hour).
I’ve said it before, but Tahoe Time is a rather wonderful parallel universe in which to vacation. There are swings and slides and rock walls. There is swimming, kayaking, and digging in the sand. There are geese in chevron flight and grasshoppers and dragonflies and
ice cream cones melting in the sun and cold beers by the pool in the
late afternoon. There is less oxygen (it’s the altitude!). And it all adds up to active, sunny days which accomplish the impossible: getting an excitable nearly-four-year-old boy and his all-but-walking little sister to crash out at about 7pm, leaving Mommy and Daddy and any other friends free to linger around the grill for a few hours before bed.
My husband and I have been coming here for years and the other day, as we all tromped over to the pool at 9am (having already hit the playground, re-enacted Cars 2 with the matchbox cars, emptied the dishwasher, and packed lunches) I asked him “What in the heck did we do with our time before we had kids?”
My husband quickly reminded me that in the years B.K. (Before Kids) we’d:
- Sleep in
- Read the paper
- Hike more than 100 feet
- Grill fish for lunch and drink wine while we ate it
- Watch baseball games
- Nap
- Read books quietly in the sun
(I got the sense as he was telling me this that he would really like to grill some fish, have a glass of wine, then nap while he watched the baseball game and I read a book in the sun. Not. Gonna. Happen. Unless you count lying on the couch and trying to ignore Babyman’s incessant questioning as to whether he can watch Cars 2 when the baseball game is over.)
In short, we lounged. No wonder I forgot: I honestly can’t remember the last time I lounged. I never lounge any more. In fact, I believe I suffer from a child-bearing side-effect called Compulsive Puttering Disorder (CPD). I can always find something to do: prep dinner, make lists (I am really big on list-making…grocery lists, to-do lists, to-buy lists, outfits-I-want-to-wear lists…), pick up the toys, pick up the toys I missed the first time, make the bottles, wash the bottles, check my email. And that’s another thing! The advent of the personal handheld device now means that I can literally work, standing up, on vacation in the kitchen. Business While Puttering (BWP)!
So between my CPD and the inescapable BWP I often find that by the time I finally get to sitting down, the movie is almost over, Babygirl is waking up from her nap (which, incidentally, is currently being dangerously compromised by Babyman’s nemesis the landscaper and his incessant lawnmowing), and the family starts to mobilize for the next activity.
Make no mistake: my lack of lounging is entirely my own fault. I am afflicted. Admitting the problem is the first step in solving it.
This Tahoe trip is an unprecedented 14 days; if we don’t come back from this refreshed, then we are deranged. So today, Day 5, I resolved to not putter. I will have a midday mimosa! I will work on my oft-neglected blog! I will snuggle with sun-zapped Babyman on the couch!
So far, my self-treatment of the CPD is pretty delightful. I might just stick with it for the next week or so. And I think there’s a teeny-tiny sip of champagne left in the fridge, so I’m signing off!
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