The Great Grass Experiment

There are admittedly aspects of this entire move that I think are sort of cool.  One huge one is my son having a backyard in which to play.  The thought of him running around an expansive blanket of green is thrilling for me.  It was one aspect of city life that bothered me--no room to play unless you're in a public park.  And, as many of you know, one cannot attend a park activity without one's Manolos.  So, again in keeping with my "bright side" crap, this is a cool thing.  But this desire to become one with nature comes with an irrational fear that he will (of course he will) forget all that he learned about living in the city.  As Chicago is such a huge part of who I am, this bothers me.  But perhaps it shouldn't.

So a few days after we arrived, we tried out the whole "backyard" thing.  First, let me say, my son refuses to wear shoes.  And I don't just mean he puts up a fight when putting them on, I mean he will stand there as though weighted to the ground if you manage to get them on his feet.  He refuses to move.  Shoes are, for all intents and purposes, evil to him.  So picture, if you will, a toddler wearing several pairs of socks, venturing out to his first brush with nature.  He was completely overwhelmed.  He clearly thought it was cool.  But, he also clearly thought (as many city folk do) that it was for viewing not for utilizing.  There is a concrete walk that runs through the middle of the yard, and he would not move off of it.  He refused.  Even if I picked him up and set him on the grass, he immediately toddled back over to the concrete.  He did touch the grass, but only to "pet" it from the safety of the walk.  I was so proud.  In just a year, my kid had become so citified, he would have made a New Yorker impressed.

We will, of course, continue to attempt to beat (metaphorically, of course) nature into the kid.  But for now, just as I hang on to the Cubs for dear life, he clings to concrete.  Maybe there's hope of retaining our identies after all....