Venturing Out

Chicago winter this year has been brutal. We've only had a couple days above 40 degrees, and that usually peaks during naptime. It just hasn't been outside/park weather.

My poor, pitiful toddler has been cooped up in the house and has only been able to venture out to stores and storytime lately. We've had few playdates because it seems that this winter is also the winter of the sicks, and all of our local friends and their kiddos have been hit with it. We've also been dealt some sicks, but luckily Claire has yet to really get any of it.

I've been avoiding Benjamin's very favorite germ factories places because of my {possibly irrational} fear that Benjamin will get sick and then spread the germs to his sister which will then end up in the hospital at a wee 10lbs with RSV or something. I fear tubes coming out of her and IVs put in and all that. And not to mention the hospital bills. We're not done paying those from her birth, after all. They trickle in here and there.

I ask myself if it is worth it for that one hour of playtime to be sick and up all night with kids and dealing with scary sick for my wee baby. I've told myself for these last 2.5 months that it is not worth it, and so we spend lots of our time at home. It was easy at first because the baby was new and luckily slept 90% of her day. She's now becoming more alert and my attention cannot be fully on Benjamin; chasing him up and down the stairs and building forts.

Until today. Because yesterday Benjamin, for the first time ever, decided to nap zero minutes. I can't help but assume that it's because he wasn't tired because he had exerted only a small amount of the energy he had stored from the last sleep. And so he played. At 8:30, right before bed, he was running around the upstairs bathroom doing his very best (and pretty fantastic) monkey impression. He had way too much energy that needed releasing.

Today, we ventured out to the germ factory down the street. The indoor playhouse we used to spent every single afternoon playing at before Claire was born. When we drive by lately, he whines and complains that I am not stopping the car so he can play. I gave in today.

He exuded so much joy playing at that place this morning. Nevermind that sister had a blowout and I didn't bring a change of clothes and barely had enough wipes to manage the diaper alone. And that I practically had to drag him out kicking and screaming and the only way I got him out was to let him press the automatic door openers at the exit.

And you know what? He's napping. In his bed. Sound asleep.

Will we pay for it later? Who knows. I guess we will have to get outside of our bubble sooner or later. Two months of immunizations down... let's hope those pack a punch against the sicks of the world.