Peacocks and Peanut Butter Sandwiches

This is a complete 180 of my last blog.

So, it was Sunday today and Melissa was working until 1:30. The overpaid liars at weather headquarters actually came through for us. Clear skies and a perfect 22 degrees Celsius.



The boy woke me up at 7:30, we went downstairs and started the day. I had a sweet plan of taking him to Beacon Hill Park today. I was packing a picnic lunch to bring. Peanut butter sandwiches, blueberries, and watermelon. They have a rockin' playground, a petting zoo, mini putt, and a water park. There's also resident peacocks that live at the zoo, but roam the park. If you've never heard of Beacon Hill Park, here ya go: www.beaconhillpark.com. I brought my video camera to capture the day, and anything that might happen. So we venture through the park around 10am. it has windy paths that wrap around ponds filled with multiple species of birds. My son LOVES birds. Usual crows and the occasional shithawk, ducks, geese, a blue heron, and peacocks. He runs around the paths saying hi to all the birds. After a close and intimate encounter with a squirrel, and beating a tree with a stick, he sees the playground through the brush. Bolts for it. I've never seen a playground so busy before in my life. I almost thought for a second that if I so much as closed my eyes if I sneezed, I could lose sight of my kid.



He climbed, scaled, ran, swung, jumped, laughed, and played. It was so great to see him behaving well around other kids. That twatty grandmother wasn't there. There was a scary moment when the little one ran into the path of some bigger kids on the swing. He ran right through the first one's swing, narrowly missing. At this point I'm diving and reaching for him in what seemed like slow motion. I managed to get a hand on his shoulder just enough to clear him of the second swinger. He fell into the woodchips, but that's far better that being smoked in the back by someone on a swing. A fellow dad there saw my actions and said "Nice reflexes." We left the playground to go have lunch, but Dad needed to take a wizz. For some bizarre reason, my son wanted to go and grab the rim of the urinal. Looking down at the wall toilet next to me that looked more like a beard, and him walking out with hands extended, I screamed DON'T TOUCH!!!! Luckily he didn't. I was not prepared to deal with pube hands. We found a nice shady spot under a gary oak and unpacked our lunch. We sat there peacefully eating and taking in the scenery. There were a couple peacocks in the trees behind us making their oddly human-like sounds. We completed a secondary round of the playground after lunch. The boy had no interest in the water park, and was showing signs of fatigue. I carried him home and put him down for a nap.

This is what I captured.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erlG9yuS6H0


It was a perfect day. It was one of those days that make the rough ones go away. I often gripe about the perils of parenthood, but you can't have your ying without your yang.