Just. Stay. Inside.

Have I mentioned lately that my mini-human feels the need to be outside 24/7/365? If I haven’t believe me people, every single day he thinks he needs to be outside. All. Stinking. Day. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want my child to grow up inside on his tablet all day or watching Snow Buddies (our current favorite) with his blanky and Monks. I’ll introduce Monks in a different post. But somedays, it’s just better if he does stay inside.

For example, my child could be dying of the bubonic plague during a freak blizzard storm in -100 degree weather and he would still demand that he be let outside. If it is pouring down rain and you have a heinous-as-all-get-out cough, you are staying inside. If it is 15 degrees outside and it is snowing and your nose is pouring some disgusting green mucous that you can literally blow bubbles in, you are staying inside. If you are ill chances are my mini-human, that you won’t get to go outside, sort of.

Sometimes though it’s hard to discern whether my mini-human’s cough/sneeze/runny nose is due to an actual cold or just some stinking allergies. This is when my overbearing Mama Bear decision making skills kick in. On the one hand, if it is allergies and I am keeping him inside I’m basically a demon in his eyes, but on the other hand if he is actually sick and I keep him inside….well I’m still the mean demon but it’s justified guys. Why can’t children come with a little diagnostics dashboard, we could do it like how they check your car. But I suppose that would save parents the internal struggle and self questioning and well, that just won’t do.

A lot of the times I bounce back and forth with ‘sure let’s bundle up like we’re running the Iditarod and go outside for five minutes’ and ‘go color a picture there’s no way you’re getting outside’. But, I have discovered a fun attribute of my new home. Off our living room we have a nice sliding glass door that goes onto a decent sized deck in the sky with a huge cover and no stairs to escape into swamp land (it’s weird right that the door to the back of the house goes to a deck with no stairs so you can’t actually get out back from the back right?) Soooooo….I have learned the art of compromise when it comes to the mini-humans demanding nature with regards to venturing outside in less than ideal weather. I live in Washington, and if you know anything about Washington that is that it rains, a lot. So on days when I am losing the battle, with my small child, I let him get dressed and bring his “dirt bike” on the back deck. He feels like he is playing outside (which technically he is) and I don’t have to worry about him getting soaked followed by turning into a not-so-delicious popsicle due to the wind. Everybody wins. I mean I lose when that “dirt bike” magically makes its way inside, so then I get to play herd dog and guide my sneaky guy back onto the porch.

Sometimes it’s okay to compromise, sometimes you don’t have to. I’ve learned to balance both. Some days I lose, somedays I come out ahead. Either way we both usually end up happy, because at the end of the day, if my mini-human is happy I am happy. I mean bonus fact he usually passes out hhhhhaaaarrrdddd when he’s had too much fresh air so that’s a happy side effect of raising a boy who consumes his fair share of fresh air.