The Big City

Okay, so the Small City is definitely NOT the big city, but to Cubby, it might as well be.

Yesterday before Cubby's appointment at the pediatrician, we went to the grocery store (avocados! Corona! Feliz Cinco de Mayo!). I got through it faster than I anticipated, which meant that we were in the Small City at 8:30 a.m. with 45 minutes to kill until Cubby's appointment. Nothing is open at 8:30 in the morning in the Small City except places like Dunkin' Donuts. Not that I have any objection to Dunkin' Donuts, but what I needed was a place where Cubby could run around. After half an hour in the car and another 45 minutes in the grocery cart, he was SO OVER the sitting.

What I needed, actually, was a park. But I didn't think there was a park in the business district we were in. The only reason I thought that, however, is that I had never had need of one before. But once my vision had changed to Mom Vision (totally a Thing, yes), I immediately spotted a paved area with benches next to the river that runs through the Small City. It was on one of the busiest corners in the city, and was not really a park. It was about half the size of my garden, and was really nothing more than a flat stretch of concrete with a few benches and some flowers.

It wasn't exactly the nature experience that most people are looking for when they go to a park, but one thing Cubby is not lacking is nature experience. In fact, it occurred to me as we were standing there watching the traffic whiz by and waving at the police cars and fire trucks (we were right across from the police and fire department), that Cubby's horizon-broadening experiences are probably the exact opposite of 90 percent of children today. Most kids go out to farms on field trips to visit animals in a petting zoo. Cubby essentially lives in a petting zoo, and so his big exciting field trip was to stand on a sidewalk and watch traffic.

And make no mistake, it was exciting. He was perfectly happy for the half an hour we were there. Not so happy when we went to the doctor and he got the inevitable needle in the thigh, but that, my son, is life.

P.S. He's 32 inches tall and almost 25 pounds, in case you were curious. And they gave him a book entitled, "Have You Seen My Potty?" Actual conversation in this book between a cow, a sheep, and a goat regarding the potty, "It's a thing for pooing in." "Hey, I need to poo!" "Me too!" SHOOT ME NOW.