Firm Picnic - June 2004

Our Firm puts on a pretty good picnic. There is plenty of good food, and they have lots of fun things for kids to do, so we decided to take Kaleb and Codey Saturday. This presented a challenge, as Codey is one who needs a good morning nap. Codey is a bright, cheery child so long as he is reasonably well rested, but can be downright inconsolable when tired. Codey is a volatile mixture of strength and heft. Imagine a sack of potatoes that can leg-press a couch. If he decides he doesn't care to go bye-bye, it can take a squad of secret service agents swarming the car seat to get him buckled in.

Kaleb too presented a challenge. He has entered the age where his default emotional condition is defiance. No! has become the word of most use in his developing vocabulary. Kaleb, do you need to go potty? NO! Kaleb, will you pick up the Play-Doh? NO! Kaleb, will you please give PeePaw the trigger for the doomsday weapon...

This morning Kaleb is fairly compliant, and Codey takes a lengthy nap. We pack everyone up and motor to Shaw Park on what may have been one of the ten most beautiful weekends in my memory. I envisioned a particularly nice day with the grandchildren.

We arrived at the tent set up to shelter picnickers, tip the team of sherpas who carry the supplies needed for the afternoon's child care, and sit down to eat.

Kaleb loves corn-on-the-cob, and we develop a system. I break off a child-size hunk of corn-on-the-cob, Kaleb eats it for ten seconds, Kaleb drops it. Repeat. Gemey suggests counterintuitively (and correctly) that Kaleb may do better with a bigger ear, and offers hers. Kaleb strips it like a blonde locust.

Alas, the meal was mostly the only thing that Kaleb really wanted to do. He rides the pony for 50 feet before melting down. I transfer him to my shoulders (which ironically is the heavier and clumsier of the two beasts), and offer to let him play on the many inflatable attractions there. When I try to take him down from my shoulders to go play on them, he squeezes my head with his little thighs, and grabs by my hair and eye sockets, mournfully protesting that he doesn't want to go.

Codey, the animated sack of potatoes refused to go gently into that good stroller. He arched his back with the strength of a scissors jack and squalled something fierce. Unaware of his own weight, he wanted to be carried wherever he went. We got him belted in, but Gemey had to pull a 100 yard wheelie with the stroller to get him to the playground.

Still in all, we enjoy a beautiful day, and Kaleb and Codey eventually found pastoral distraction, Kaleb on the playground, and Codey in his grandmas arms looking at the trees and taking his bottle.

It was a particularly nice day, just not like I envisioned.

Tim McNabb