Showing posts with label stroller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stroller. Show all posts

Monday, March 11, 2013

Standing in front of a pteranodon

Here's a great photo of us I found in my files; I don't remember the name of the place, but it was on the coast in southern Oregon where you walk through the forest, which has a bunch of fake dinosaurs arranged in dioramas. Kind of kitschy, I know, but it was pretty drive and lots of fun! I'm a sucker for kitschy dinosaur displays, btw.

The trail through the displays started with concrete, so we took you in your stroller. Then the trail turned to dirt and got rough, so we had to carry you and bring the stroller back to the beginning!

Here we are in front of a pteranodon. We did this trip in September 2007, so you are only 6 months old! On the way back, we stopped for a nice meal at a restaurant in Brookings, Ore. We were living in Crescent City, Calif., at the time.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Journal entry from 2009 about carrying you

Today, a journal entry from my autumn 2009 journal, about you becoming too big to be carried.

Yesterday I carried you during the entire Seaside Highland Festival, an act on my part that demonstrates a continued obsession with the pasing of days (Sounds like a great title for a book, doesn't it - "The Passing of Days"?).

On one hand, carrying you was simply a practical matter - you;re getting much too large for the stroller, and unbuckling you from it each time you want to walk or see something is burdensome. But my real motivation is carrying all 30 pounds of you was to savor these last few weeks while I still can. There is something powerfully comforting in having your body tucked against my side, in having your arm wrapped about my shoulder.

You enjoy being carried, of course, likely because you're able to see better when your eyes are at the same level as mine, but I believe you also find being close to me comforting as well. I suppose, practically speaking, that walking all that way is burdensome for you, so that is motivation as well. But even when in a stroller you want tobe held and carried at times, even if you have na unobstructed view before you.

I must admit thanks to all of this carrying, my arms have never been so thick and well-toned since the last time I regularly worked out years ago. But even an athlete must take a break or his workout will backfire. Such pain is nothing, though, compared to what I felt today: At the park, you walked to the playground and then back to the Keep all by yourelf - a bittersweet moment of pride for me as a father... (Oct. 12, 2009)