I agree, this is ridiculously cute. Who wouldn't take a picture of her little guy with a bucket on his head... and then post it on facebook? What the picture doesn't show is why Joshua was wearing a bucket on his head. It took me several minutes to piece the whole thing together, and realize that it was no coincedence. See, while Joshua was toddling around with his bucket helmet, Liam was investigating a matter of science. Specifically, he was investigating the concept of centrifical force. He had taken the chain from one of our swings and was swinging it around in the air. Suddenly the bucket didn't seem cute to me, it seemed completely necessary; probably insufficient even.
Of course any fly on the wall can tell you things are just not always as they seem. For example, someone seeing me and Liam in the grocery store produce section might remark about how well behaved he is. He pushes the cart carefully, he weighs the fruits and vegetables, he chooses organic carrots... but by the time we have reached frozen goods another person in the store might think I have raised a monster. By this time, I have taken the cart from him because he has run into canned goods or someone's sandles (hopefully mine). By the frozen goods section, he is likely sitting on the floor, or trying to play tic-tac-toe on the frosty doors. Someone might think I'm an awfully bad parent with no real control over my kid if they only observed me in the frozen food section. But let's look at the big picture... Liam is no monster but he's clearly not an angelic-mommy's-little-helper either. It doesn't help that he has an attention span of about 10 minutes and a grocery store trip for us lasts about 60 minutes... at any rate, things are just not always as they seem.
This would appear to be a beautiful Father's Day moment captured with our family. But behind the scenes, there may be more to it than might appear. See, we had just picked out Bill's mom to take the family out mini-golfing for Father's Day. But "on the way" we decided to stop to buy Liam a new pair of summer sneakers. What should have been a 15 minute stop turned into a one hour diversion. Was that because there were so many selections for Liam to choose from? No, in that one hour, he only tried on 4 pairs of shoes (not counting Crocs... do they really count for shoes anyway?). At any rate, it was ridiculous. He kept saying he loved the shoes, then he would hate the shoes, then they would be too loose, and then too tight and ... well we had all just about had it by the time we left (with the shoes he's seen wearing here). I explained to Liam that we had all lost our patience somewhere in the shoe department and if he wanted to continue with the plan to go mini-golfing he and Joshua would really need to cooperate. So we got to mini-golf a bit late, they didn't take the coupon (because it was a holiday) and we all had ice cream for dinner. Liam kept running ahead and Joshy kept running across the greens. Oh! And as you can tell, our camera was not cooperating and now we have a bunch of blurry photos. We were doing our best to have fun but we all breathed a sigh of relief when we stepped off of Hole 19. And then we realized it was way past bedtime already and we still needed to get back home. So Father's Day ended with a mad dash once we pulled into our driveway.
So what does this picture show? A happy family mini-golfing on Father's Day. The backstory... well it isn't so glamorous or memorable at all now is it? Kind of like the bucket helmet picture. He seems happy. Does Joshua ever really have to know his life was in peril? Did anyone ever have to know that our Father's Day 2012 was anything less than perfect? Hmmm... moral of the story: Things aren't always what they seem... but sometimes it's best to keep up appearances.
No comments:
Post a Comment