93 Percent Predictability

Some Summer Fun at Kenwood Park.



As humans, our minds prefer predictability. We're wired that way.

BioMom and I are taking a little trip for each of our upcoming birthdays. It is the first trip in many years without the kids.

Since Big could walk (at about 10 months) I haven't felt comfortable leaving him with anyone for any extended period of time.

It wasn't because he wasn't capable. He's always been capable, at least physically.

It was because he was unpredictable.

Unlike his sister, whose moods, actions, behaviors, etc. for better or for worse, can be predicted--with some accuracy, I might add--Big often does things (privately and publicly) that I could never have predicted.

There was the time last summer that drove his bike off of a four foot ledge and threw the shuffleboard puck over a second story patio onto the pooldeck at which people sat enjoying a theretofore balmy afternoon.

There was his reaction to meeting my aunt over this past Fourth-of-July.

There was the time a few weeks ago that he darted (literally) in front of a moving bus (safely, thank God) even though I was distinctly aware of the possibility that he might run at any moment.

There was the day he threw his shoe out of the window of our moving car.

And then there was today.

It was our first day attempting some casual errands, a haircut, a trip to the beach, a Chipotle lunch with Nine's pal, in our new post-diaper era. Our first time with shorts on and with a burgeoning awareness that bathrooms exist out in the world and need to be located at particular points in time and that while locating said bathroom, one must wait to relieve their bladder.

He was doing great. Bathroom at Lake Harriet Bandshell? Check. Bathroom at haircut pace? Check.

Then we were at Chipotle and I was compiling the laborious order of two picky Nine-year-olds when they came running over to me in a panic: Big had grabbed another boy's box of chocolate milk while the other kids was in the bathroom, drinking it as quickly as possible.

!!!

All-in-all though, particularly in the post-potty-training world (I can't believe I am speaking of this in past tense already!) he has become much more predictable.

I'd say we've moved from about 80 to 93 percent predictable.

So, because I trust that grandma and grandpa can handle seven percent uncertainty, we'll be heading to the Big Apple in a couple of weeks for a few days for some R&R.