So Jonah is 7 now and loves to be outside.
He won’t wear a mask so we try not to go to places with a lot of other people.
By far his favorite thing that we are able to do outside is to “go see the geese.”
Seriously. He just wants to hang out with geese.
All day.
Rain or shine. Until the geese fly away or until the sun sets.
It’s okay during the summer and fall, when the weather is pleasant enough to be outside for long periods of time… but the weather is absolutely brutal (for Daddy) right now.
I have effectively been doing laps around town every day with my son looking for geese to play with in the freezing cold and rain.
Well, except I guess “school” did start back up again today. A rather minor inconvenience into another “hours-long-geese-seeing” day for Jonah.
“School.”
Heh. (Subject for another time)
Anyway, After ‘school’ finished up, I tried to entertain Jonah with every and all of the things that indoor life had to offer an Ausome 7-year-old during a global pandemic.
My sister helped as well, bringing out a fantastic, intriguing, new sensory toy I had never seen before.
I was hoping it would keep him entertained until dusk.
It bought about 15 minutes before Jojo informed me that he wanted to “go see the geese.”
And of course, the rain that had been falling ALL FREAKING DAY let up apparently just for such an occasion.
(Curse you weather.)
So off we went.
But we didn’t find any geese today.
We drove around to like eight different locations and they were nowhere to be seen.
In the past, this has led to many a meltdown.
(I have tried reasoning with the geese… Trying to explain our situation… trying to get their daily “schedule.” Inviting them over for coffee… all to no avail. The jerks.)
There is a point of parenthood (I am sure I reached years ago) when you find you would do literally anything to prevent the child from having a meltdown.
Anything.
There is really not a lot of redirect at my disposal to “not seeing the geese” since the only MORE preferred activities that might be enticing enough for Jonah to avoid a meltdown are things like “swimming… bowling… going to an indoor bouncy-house. Going on the indoor big toy at McDonalds… what else… freaking DISNEYLAND?”
Things we CAN’T currently do.
So, we settled on going to visit “the ants.”
There is a local park that is home to many different ant hills. During the summer and fall, we would watch the ants for hours.
I have used “visiting the ants” as a redirect when the geese weren’t cooperating in the past.
Like I said, “Anything to prevent a meltdown.”
But the ant hills are all dormant now. No ants to be seen. I knew this. And yet I still suggested it.
Sometimes you just gotta play the “meltdown odds.”
Like the chance of a meltdown after not being able to find any geese and just heading home I would put around 90%-95%.
The chance of a meltdown after going to see “the ants” and not being able to actually see “the ants,” I would put around 70%-75%. (Ants just aren’t as “cool.”)
I’m out of better outdoor options and the indoor options are non-existent thanks to COVID.
But that didn’t stop Jojo.
We got to the dormant ant hill park and he was okay.
He didn’t seem to mind not seeing any ants.
(Daddy WINS!)
He wandered for 2 miles around that park until the sun went down. (I swear I can’t keep the kid indoors anymore)
The world’s most preferred activity indoors does not hold a candle to just being outside.
Even when it’s pouring down rain, freezing cold and there’s really nothing to do.
Most would say it was cold, wet, and miserable today. (Daddy included)
But not to Jojo.
To Jojo, chasing geese around town all day and then walk/running 2-6 miles around a random park in the freezing rain today because there were no ants to see is a perfectly acceptable thing to do on a fine January evening.
To me, that’s miserable.
To him, it’s just “living.”
#ausome