So… I’m not likely to take my boys geocaching (on my own) again for quite a while… my bloodied finger confirms this to be a good idea…

This past Saturday my wife was away shooting a wedding and I was solo parenting the boys all day. It was quite grey and rainy all morning and the boys were starting to get a wee bit antsy from being stuck inside. I decided to check the weather network to see if any of those impressively-good-looking meteorological folk were willing to forecast a break when — lo and behold — it looked like we’d be getting relief from about 3-6 pm.

I had been talking to my older guy (Big-L is almost 4) about geocaching lately and telling him it’s like treasure hunting. He has been keen on going out for weeks now so, I decided finally that it would be a good time to get them outside and introduced to the world of geocaching.

“Geo|steelie” (me), “rainbow lightning” (Big-L) and “x|man” (Lil-X) were goin’ treasure hunitn’.

The caches we were going to check out were relatively close to our house… and by relatively, I mean they were closer than most other caches… and by that, I mean we walked for almost 2 km. I was really nice to get the boys out onto the wooded path so they could run along without me having to hold their hands because of all the cars around.

Things were going well for quite a while but the boys soon lost interest… what, with being 2 and 4 years old and all… and decided that they would rather run around on the grass. That was fine until they started to run too far away from me and I had to chase them down.

And so, the “not listening” began…

I scooped up Lil-X only to have Big-L run away. Great. Now I had to chase L down while carrying X, a backpack/diaper bag and my shoulder bag.

Not.

Easy.

Not.

Fun.

I finally caught Big-L by the collar of his T-shirt only to have him start flailing about trying to get away. Ugh. Finally, I had to pick them both up to head home… SIXTY POUNDS of children plus their backpack, plus my bag, is not an easy feat to manage, regardles of what kind of point I was trying to make by carrying them.

A short while later I had to put them both back down and we all walked holding hands for a while: translation = I practically dragged them along for that period of time.

We eventually got to the playground near our house and they started to jump in the puddles (no rain boots) but I didn’t have the energy to stop them at this point. It actually ended up being very cute to watch them. Plus, there had been a cache nearby that had eluded me the last time so, I decided to check it out… only to slip on a wet rock and fall into the creek. I managed to not get wet as I landed on my feet on rocks (I credit Parkour for that one) except, to direct myself away from the water I had to use my hand as I fell… which took the bulk of my weight… on a piece of glass.

Awesome.

So.

Now my boys are soaked from puddle-jumping. They don’t want to leave. I have to carry/drag them home with my finger bleeding like crazy. Big-L was freaked by the blood so he didn’t want me to touch him. Lil-X is trying to run into the house completely soaked so, I had to get their wet cloths off at the front door before they are allow off the mat before I can do anything about my finger.

I managed to strip them down, bloodied finger and all, so that I could finally clean the cut… so that I could finally get the Bandaid on… so I could finally get them into dry clothes… so that I could finally get supper ready… so that I could FINALLY get them to bed… and apparently, so that I could fall asleep on their floor doing so.

My finger has never bee cut so deep before. It still kinda throbs.

I feel bad… I actually kinda lost my patience wit Big-L when I was trying to get home and he just kept hanging back because of the blood. I eventually had to carry Lil-X in my right arm with bloodied finger and pull L along with my good hand. They were both pretty calm shortly after but still freaked out about the blood.

Once the boys were asleep, the next order of business was trying to find a way to do the dishes with my finger the way it was… I did get them dome but, needless to say, it took me quite a while.
—
steelie