A glimpse into our former lives...

Let me start this post by first keeping my father from having a heart attack on the off chance that he reads this. This fire was at the far corner of the patio, nowhere close to our house or anything wooden that could possibly have ignited. It also was not windy. Not even the flower petals close to the fireplace were harmed. I know....you just worry about us. And I'm glad you do.

It was a strange weekend at our house, but a good one despite some odd circumstances that wouldn't normally be considered "good". Jason has been sick, really sick, for the better part of a week. As last week ended, he was starting to come out of the fog....just as Joshua was entering into it. Friday, our little buddy was pretty miserable. He was mopey and whiny and pretty much glued to me from the time I got home from work until his little eyes closed for sleep. We even ate our dinner on the couch because getting up and being separated wasn't an option. He didn't feel good....at all. The only good thing to come out of this evening, besides some very concentrated cuddle time for mommy and Joshua was a newfound movie on our frequent play list. Joshua is now a fan of the "Sulley Movie" as he calls it....Monsters, Inc. to the rest of us. It's cute--- hadn't seen it before the three times I watched it this weekend. Let's just say it's a nice change of pace from Horton Hears A Who which I can basically recite from beginning to end while standing on my head. Except that I don't have a prayer of standing on my head these days. Seriously. 31 weeks and 6 days pregnant. Now wouldn't THAT be something?

Saturday Joshua started to perk up a little and was playing a little more, but still wasn't 100%. I, however, began to spiral into the depths of whatever this thing is. Despite that, we managed to cross off a very long to-do list by exhibiting some of our very best "teamwork parenting". Jason and I both said, at the end of the day, that we felt like we had accomplished quite a bit for one day. Normally one of us feels slighted because our lists have been neglected in favor of the other one's being deemed more important. It was a good feeling. Joshua had refused to nap because he heard that we were planning a trip to Target after he awoke. Clearly this meant that he COULD NOT POSSIBLY sleep with something so exciting on the horizon. The Target trip worked out just fine and he was relatively pleasant through it. This all went to pot in the evening when he was so tired that HE.....my non-sleeping child.....suggested at 8:00 that we go up to bed. He had had all he could take of the day. So, at 8:30, Jason and I found ourselves relatively awake, with to-do lists accomplished. What?

I came downstairs to put the milk cup in the sink and smelled something burning. Don't worry, Dad. When I looked outside, I saw the picture above. The outdoor fireplace that we had purchased to replace the chiminea that rolled down the hill and broke into a thousand pieces in a windstorm two years ago was ablaze. I had mentioned to Jason, while coming home from our Target trip that I was in the mood for a campfire, and he heard my request and made it come true. What a husband. Ever since we bought the fireplace, we've wondered why because we NEVER EVER EVER sit outside and enjoy it. The nights are too short and too full of things that need to be done, and let's face it, fire and a toddler aren't a good mix. At least not a toddler like Joshua.

We sat on the porch together, just the two of us, and had a conversation. Amazing. We talked about how nice it was to be able to do that, and how we used to do it all the time. We talked about how we even used to have friends that we could sit on the porch with in the evenings and talk to. We marvelled at how different things can become, and how now, all of those people have their own children who need to have their heads on their own pillows at that hour of the night, making such meetings improbable and just plain hard to make happen. It was after 11:00 when we came inside, smelling of campfire. I had to wash sheets the next day that smelled of smoke, but it was so worth it. It was almost like, for a few hours, we had our old lives back.

But don't worry...the monitor was plugged into the outlet outside, so in the background we could hear our snoring little man happily dreaming away upstairs. In all honesty, it was the best of both worlds. I wouldn't trade our new life for our old one for a single second. But it is nice to visit the past every now and again. And it's good to think that when the dust settles (read: give us another 2 1/2 years until our daughter is in a reasonable sleeping pattern and our bodies have adjusted to the new new normal of life with two children) we just might be able to enjoy a few more of these grown-up nights on the porch with a fire blazing. And I just may stock some marshmallows in the pantry in case it happens again.