Only the Best Intentions

After mulling over my random observations yesterday, I decided to take action and fix some things that have been bothering me about my life lately. Resolution #1: Get off my ass more during the day. Ever since Turtle started becoming more self-sufficient, and by that I mean he can now entertain himself instead of looking to me for his daily dose of brain-warping, I've started spending more time on my laptop with my ass firmly planted on the sofa cushions. I mean, I do get up to crayon with the little man and play "go-gos" (his word for guns) and set up elaborate tracks made of ramps and blocks so he can race his cars. But when he's happily watching one of his movies, or taking his naps, I am most often found on the couch with my computer on my lap, surfing blogs and reading random celebrity gossip sites.

So yesterday, I decided today would be the day I started over. I would make more of an effort to get out of the house with the Turtle. We'd go to the park and run around and play and when I got my bike fixed, we'd take bike rides together and take advantage of the nice part of living in Arizona - really mild winters. I'd clean the house and start organizing some paperwork and get some things in order that I'd let slide. In short, I would limit myself to a couple hours on the computer at the beginning and the end of the day, and the rest of the time, I would be Productive.

I......did not get off to a good start. We didn't get moving until 11:00 this morning, after Turtle had already been up for almost four hours. But we did get moving! I put on some grungy clothes, a hat and my tennis shoes and we set off on our little adventure. I was really looking forward to this. It's a beautiful day and I couldn't wait to watch Turtle go down the slide. He gets the biggest kick out of that. Honestly, I had the best intentions. But, we didn't get more than two cul-de-sacs down the road when Turtle started running through the rocks on somebody's property, tripped, and fell into a big pile of burrs. He started crying instantly, and when I picked him up, he had drops of blood all over his hands and face. I picked all the burrs off of him and got him home so I could clean him up. His hands and face actually don't look so bad now that he's clean. But his torso is covered in ugly red welts.

Turtle recovered quickly enough and was back to playing with his trains in no time. I suppose I could use this as an excuse to crawl back onto the couch and continue along as we were before, but I was really enjoying our walk and I think the reasoning is still good. I need to be more active, and going to the gym is not always enough. I am sure we will try again. So when you see a woman in a hat, walking with a little boy in full body armor, say hi. We'd love to stop and chat.