When you've been home all week with the baby, day after day, night after night, you can get this little thing called "cabin fever". Today it hit me hard that I'm apparently going crazy and needed to get out of my house ASAP!
Matt has been lucky enough to be able to come home around noon all week since he's finished up his most recent section of school and has been doing a "self study" time till the next section starts up (which is awesome since I get to see him more!). There have been a couple days where he's gotten home and I've immediately handed off the baby with a lovely little statement like "You can have your son now. I'm done."and then walked away. I'm not very proud of those moments but it doesn't happen all of the time and sometimes you really just need a timeout. Most of the days this week however, I've told him to relax and game for a bit to unwind from long study sessions before helping with Josh and/or the house. Today I had him play before telling him that I'm going crazy and needed to get out.
We used to go for walks almost every evening until the humidity go pretty bad and then we weren't able to go as much since we'd have to wait till evening and that's when it's time to get Josh ready for bed and put him down for sleep. I've learned that it's not usually worth it to mess up a baby's schedule; especially if you want to maintain your sanity. Well we decided to go for a walk this evening so I could get out. As per usual with our walks, I said "no dogs." and then right before leaving the house with Matt and the dogs all looking at me sadly, change my mind and let them come. So around 4:00pm, we headed to downtown (we live about a 15 minute walk from downtown Newport which is really awesome!) to stop by my favorite sweet shop and then a Christmas shop since Matt and I haven't gotten our Christmas ornament for this year yet (I got Joshua's months ago). By the time we headed back to the house (I ended up having long conversations with both shop owners), we were all starving and Josh was falling asleep in the stroller. Upon arriving home, Matt put Josh to bed while I starting racing about the kitchen to make us some dinner. Josh went down easily (yay!) and then Matt and I sat down to watch a movie while we ate.
Have you ever seen a movie called Dante's Peak? It's staring Pierce Brosnan and it's about a volcano that grows unstable very quickly ending with a Mount St. Helens type of fiasco. I grew up watching this movie but Matt had never seen it (so obviously he needed to!). When I was little, this movie gave me severe nightmares along with some major anxiety while watching it. I loved it but it terrified me at the same time. I'm not a fan a horror movies (and this is NOT one in any way) but I found it extremely frightening due to the fact that everything in this movie could and has happened before in regards to volcanos. It gives a reality that not many of us have had to, or will ever have to think of. It's a very well made movie (in my opinion). During one scene, people go into a hot spring and it doesn't end all that well for them. Which honestly made me so grateful to my mother for never allowing us to swim in hot springs as children! Now, we threw fits back then about how other people could go in and they were fine but we couldn't, but she never let us. As an adult now, I know I won't ever let my children swim in one and I have never nor will I ever get into one. All it takes is one tiny tectonic movement and (to put it simply) it could get scalding hot very quickly. If you want to swim in hot water, just head on over to your neighborhood YMCA and jump in the hot tub (end hot springs rant).
So basically after babbling on about all of that, I re-learned that when you need to get out of your house, just go. Throw the baby in the stroller and head on out!