Play

After feeding Zeke his dinner yesterday, I wanted to take him outside to let him run (or in his case, crawl) around a bit before bath- and bed-time, but didn't feel like taking him to the playground with the jungle gym. He has fun there, but the bigger kids can sort of overwhelm the equipment and make it difficult for him to make his way without getting stepped on or tripped over. Plus it's paved with that rubber-y asphalt stuff that's scratchy, so I would have had to put his shoes on him, and he likes being shoeless.*

So we went to this grassy field in the neighborhood that has thick, pretty green grass and little hills. I rolled Zeke over in his car, parked the car right in the middle of the thick grass, and put Zeke on the ground.

(Zeke in his little car. The arm casually draped over the back of the seat, with the other hand resting on the steering wheel, cracks me up every time.)

First he just sat and smiled as he rubbed his bare feet back and forth, enjoying the feeling of the soft grass on his toes. Then he started to crawl around, up the hills, down the hills, sometimes stopping to see where I was, but mostly very secure that I was there and that he was safe.

I love it when he does that. Of course it's wonderful when he crawls over to me and pulls himself up and wraps his arms around my neck. And he's going through a very mommy-centric phase right now, so that happens often. I've become adept at putting on his diaper while he's standing up, because he'll be on the changing table and decide that he needs a hug. But I know he's really feeling happy and at ease when he crawls by me and just gives me a little smile as he passes.

The little hills presented a learning opportunity (and I'm using the term "hill" generously -- they're more like "mounds," maybe 4 or 5 feet high ). I crawled up to the top of a hill with him, and then lay on my side and rolled down. Zeke was spellbound. His eyes went very wide, and then he broke out in a huge grin and started laughing. I gently placed him on his side and slowly rolled him over, and he laughed some more.

We both crawled around, giggling like fools, for another 20 minutes or so. It was a beautiful late afternoon -- maybe 80 degrees, slight breeze, just enough moisture in the air to make it feel soft and protective. We rolled around, inspected leaves and sticks, pointed at airplanes up in the sky, crawled up and down hills. Then we headed home to have a bath.

We live in a busy, hectic world. Our heads swirl with scheduling issues and money worries and "what can I make for dinner that's easy?" and "shit, that laundry pile is out of control" and "ugh, I've got so much work to do and I'm really tired."

But for half an hour last night, all of that melted away as I rolled around on the grass with my son, playing and giggling without a care in the world.


* Just like his Aussie father, who I didn't see wear shoes until we had known each other for three months. Ask me about our first date, when we went to a rodeo and Jason walked around with a barbecue skewer in his foot for 10 minutes before he noticed it was there (and even then, he only noticed it because it kept hitting his other leg as he walked).