Dog on a dune
(a trip to Pacific City)
We were going to go to Astoria yesterday, but changed our minds. If there's one thing I have learned from Deepak Chopra, it's that the path of least resistance is the best way to avoid throttling your sweet little bunny child who has recently announced that he's going to have you killed because you made him so mad. Pacific City is only half the distance that Astoria is and has the known attraction of a huge sand dune that Max happens to love climbing. That's him and Philip at the top of the Dune. I took this picture from about two thirds the way up which is as far as I got.
A wonderful thing about this beach and the towering dune that looks down on it is that dogs don't have to be on leashes. Which is a wonderful thing. Chick went up and down that dune a couple of times at top speed. I can tell you that having only made it two thirds of the way up the hill before my lungs collapsed, it takes incredible power to propel a body up a steep dune at such speed. She usually looks so dopey cute, but I tell you, I saw her muscles ripple. I was deeply impressed.
Yeah, I know, lots of doggy pictures. I just can't get enough of looking at her enjoying herself so freely and hugely.
I promise the dog pictures are almost done. This is Chick chasing the moving sand her own feet have dislodged. Can you see how steep it is? That's the beach down there.
That's my mom down there talking to some people. Chick is on high alert for dogs to play with. Or more sand to chase. I wanted to be able to say I got to the top, I tried crawling on my knees but it was just too much. Here's a paradox for you: I love climbing. I'm good at climbing. I have the urge to climb rocks or hills whenever they are in front of me. However, I happen to be extremely afraid of heights. The only reason I could handle looking down there is because the sand was really pillowy. Running down the dune is like running down clouds. Soft and bouncy. It's a bit of a shock when you get to the much firmer beach sand below. It surprised my feet so much I fell down immediately.
We went to the Pelican Brew Pub which is right there on the beach. Their IPA is pretty good. They've won awards for their beers and ales. The food was alright. They put goat cheese on my salad though. Ugh.
Max insisted on running in the waves for a few minutes before coming in to meet us in the pub. So Philip let him do it. Within minutes he was screaming in pain because his feet got so cold. It seems we came close to letting our son lose his feet to frostbite. Whatever will we do next? It was about thirty degrees out there. We should have insisted he not go in the water. I took over the crisis management after Philip carried him to the car. When Max gets really panicky, it is near impossible to attend all his needs at once. He was wet and sandy with feet hurting like hell. So the first thing I think I'll do is strip him of his wet pants to put on his dry ones. So I get them off and start to put on the dry ones (he's wailing and crying all this time) and then his shrieking goes up a notch and he starts yelling at me "Get the sand off my feet! Now! Get it off!" But he's shivering and I've brushed all the sand off of his feet that I can when my hand gets splattered with blood.Well this is fairly standard now. (It's like a math equation: pain+crying= bloody nose. Bloody nose+ crying= panic sandwich.) So now the kid is screaming for tissue, shivering, with sandy hurting feet and he doesn't understand how come I can't make the sand go away, end the bloody nose, get his pants on without a single grain of sand getting inside them or a single drip of blood on them, and make his feet stop hurting all at once. Because isn't that what moms do? I have a hard time remaining patient and calm and loving. Because it's stressful to get splattered with blood while worrying about whether the kid has frostbite and will lose all his toes as a consequence of our lackadaisical parenting style, while sand is lodging itself in your mouth and your kid doesn't even have pants on. I'll tell you this much, you have to get louder than him and quieter at the same time. Not many people can do that, but I'm becoming a master.
Somehow I managed to talk him down from an insane freak out and got the warm pants on, got most of the sand off his feet, got socks on those toes, and eventually the bloody nose eased up and we walked into the Pelican Brew Pub with wads of bloody napkins as gay as a bunch of sky larks. (Ones that appear to have just gotten in a bar room brawl.) We ended up having a great time at lunch. Max and I goofed off and he actually ate about five fries which is a minor miracle.
Somehow I managed to talk him down from an insane freak out and got the warm pants on, got most of the sand off his feet, got socks on those toes, and eventually the bloody nose eased up and we walked into the Pelican Brew Pub with wads of bloody napkins as gay as a bunch of sky larks. (Ones that appear to have just gotten in a bar room brawl.) We ended up having a great time at lunch. Max and I goofed off and he actually ate about five fries which is a minor miracle.
I think it's important to understand that this kind of an event is pretty frequent around here. So the next time someone asks me how come I don't have another one on the way I'm going to refer them to this post. (And the other one about the bloody noses.) I'm going to ask them what the hell I would do with another one while working my way through these frequent crisis? And then, because these crisis' always bring on a strong urge to drink beer, how would I be able to then deal with the bickering at the table? It would make me need to start in on the hard stuff. Uh Uh. No way.
Now that my hair is almost completely gray in front I'm not getting pestered about the one kid choice anymore. But just recently some woman was "tsk tsk"ing me for saying one was enough. She told me I "had" to have other little ones. As though I was committing a crime against decency to have an only child. What is this obsession with babies anyway? Is there nothing else for people to do than pop out as many kids as possible and make sure everyone else is doing it too?
Now that my hair is almost completely gray in front I'm not getting pestered about the one kid choice anymore. But just recently some woman was "tsk tsk"ing me for saying one was enough. She told me I "had" to have other little ones. As though I was committing a crime against decency to have an only child. What is this obsession with babies anyway? Is there nothing else for people to do than pop out as many kids as possible and make sure everyone else is doing it too?
I often like to point out that I couldn't have more than one kid because I'm not a woman who could deal with kids in the plural. As though that was the real reason. It's not. The real reason is not because I would be an inadequate mother to two or three kids (though that's true enough). It has nothing to do with my mental illness or parental potential.
It's simply that I do not want to have the responsibility for the lives of more than one human being on this earth besides myself. One child was the perfect number. Plus, I never ever want to have to go through pregnancy again. Or childbirth.
I love my little monkey. Even though I have had to become an expert in bloody crisis management. Even though he's driven me to drink. A lot.
He said yesterday that he doesn't want to be a race car driver anymore. He said he wants to be a genius. (One of the few things I earnestly hope he's NOT) But then we told him how much school geniuses have to go through and he changed his mind.
It's simply that I do not want to have the responsibility for the lives of more than one human being on this earth besides myself. One child was the perfect number. Plus, I never ever want to have to go through pregnancy again. Or childbirth.
I love my little monkey. Even though I have had to become an expert in bloody crisis management. Even though he's driven me to drink. A lot.
He said yesterday that he doesn't want to be a race car driver anymore. He said he wants to be a genius. (One of the few things I earnestly hope he's NOT) But then we told him how much school geniuses have to go through and he changed his mind.
The road to Pacific City is gorgeous. The roads were icy so Philip went really slowly. Especially after we saw a VW Bug get towed away after having obviously taken a toss in the muddy ditch. I love these huge icicles hanging off the ledges to the side of the road. 
It was a winter landscape. Total magic.
I felt really happy to have been able to share this outing with my mom. She loves to see snow on hushed land. And then it snowed last night and for a few hours this morning. I was hoping it would. So my mom could actually be here to see it come down. Wonderful!