Blowing hot and cold

I'm not sure if any of the childless readers will understand this, but we had a very busy weekend where we ended up doing very little.

We cleaned house, did tons of laundry (including the loathsome folding-and-putting-away part that is the worst of it) and a little prodding at Missy's bedroom, planted the strawberries and mowed and took a load of demo debris to the dump and made a Winco run for groceries (Missy and Mommy) and played on the beach at Kelley Point Park (Peeper and Daddy) and had our friends the Wilsons over.

All in 48 hours. But we didn't really accomplish anything in particular. No major renovations were completed, no big decisions made, nada. So in retrospect it feels like it was same-same all kid all the time.

The really odd part was the weather. This weekend was supposed to be mild and sunny, generally a rarity for Oregon in April. Saturday more than lived up to the forecast. By noon the temperatures we in the high 60's and we had filled up the plastic kid pool for the Peep and his friend Josh to play in, by five it was in the 70's, all the windows were open and the fans running and we were all in our shorts...except one. We looked forward to a similar sunny Sunday.

Not. Missy and I went for our Sunday morning Starbucks in a chilly overcast. Peeper and I enjoyed a bit of sun during our long fun noonday wander along the beach at the very end of North Portland* but by two the day was cold and windy and grew steadily colder and nastier all afternoon. By the time our guests arrived we had the heat on and everyone was in their sweatshirts.

Which proves again that if you don't like the weather in northwest Oregon just wait five minutes. But I didn't post to tell you that story; I posted to tell you this one.

Late in the afternoon I was on Missy duty as Mojo rested and the Peep and his pal played in the pool. I went outside to help them with something, carrying Little Miss as is her wont after she wakes from her nap. I did whatever Daddy task was needed in the backyard before returning inside. We had no sooner crossed over the lintel when Missy started thrashing and fussing; I took her over to the couch.

"What is it, baby girl?" I tried soothing her. No deal. She yanked off one small shoe, then the other. Next came the socks, then an increasingly frantic tugging at the straps of her little overall-shorts. I had to help with that as with the pink long-sleeve shirt in order to reveal The Naked Baby beneath (hence the picure above - I left the camera at work this weekend, dammit).

Said baby who promptly eeled off the couch, grabbed my index finger and towed me back out the door, down the porch and into the backyard up to the side of the pool.

Aha.

So, being the good Daddy I am, I helped Missy climb into the pool, where she discovered for the first time in her short life exactly how cold the meltwater from Mount Hood comes out of a hose in Portland sixty miles away.

Fucking cold, is what it is.

Give the tough little harbor town girl credit - it took her two full up-to-the-thigh immersions to give up. And even then she kept paddling her hands and feet in the water to enjoy the lovely cold on a hot day.

Funny thing is: the girl had never seen that pool before - I am guessing that they did not have anything similar in the orphanage in Dongguan. So where did she get the idea to go skinny-dipping on a hot day?

Girl is scarey smart. I'm just saying.

*(Did you know that the juncture of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers - now known as Kelley Point - was originally known as "Nigger Tom"? True fact. I first saw it on the 1906-edition Portland U.S. Geological Survey quadrangle mapsheet. Frigging amazing. In this year 2008 where the presence of a mixed-race candidate for President has started many discussions of race in America I think it's important to remember where we started: where a vile racial slur could be found in cold print in as unemotional and unpolitical a place as a topographic map sheet.

This is all beside the point of the post, but...Jesus wept!)