des·per·ate
ˈdɛspərɪt, -prɪt/[des-per-it, -prit] adjective
An emotional state in which a person feels a situation to be hopeless and without satisfactory options. Desperate decisions may be more rash, impulsive, and inappropriate than those made in a rational frame of mind.
Our weekdays are busy but generally uneventful. We run in the morning and take care of errands after breakfast. We come home for lunch and after lunch E takes a nap. After her nap we play.
Something happens though, around 4 PM. Evie morphs from a fun, albeit high maintenance, little girl into an high need monster. She becomes short tempered, hard to please, clingy and difficult to care for. She wants everything but nothing makes her happy.
My mood isn’t much better. After chasing her around all day, I’m exhausted. Any caffiene I’ve ingested has long since been metabolized and dreams I had of cooking dinner are slowly disappearing – along with my patience. It’s the witching hour.
During the witching hour, I become desperate and will do anything to keep her occupied until Jason gets home.
Anything.
Want a cookie????
(That will buy me 10 minutes.)
Wanna go to Target? We can share an Icee!
(An hour.)
Note: Target can be swapped out for any large retail store where I can enjoy the air conditioning and let E wander up and down the aisles.
Let’s go to the park! We can slide!
(45 minutes.)
Are you hungry? I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich!
(20 minutes.)
If the desperation reaches record levels I will pour some fermented grape juice into an outdoor friendly cup (read: inconspicuous), strap Evie in the stroller, head out for a walk down our street and pray that Jason doesn’t choose to go to happy hour after work. If my pace is slow enough I can usually walk in circles until he gets home…
…which is where I found myself today. Walking down our street, pushing Evie in the stroller and carrying a souvenir cup we got at a football game 10 years ago. The cup contained about 6 ounces of a very nice single vineyard, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon that Jason opened last night. The bottle cost about $100 and really should accompany a broiled ribeye.
Instead it accompanied me on our walk.
Desperate.
It was really good though.