John takes Mom for a walk

John was in a rare form today. He couldn't wait to get home from swimming so that he could get outside on his scooter. I figured it would be a short walk, since the swimming lesson usually wears him out a bit. Off we went.

He took off at breakneck speed toward the main road, 1/2 a block away. He had been hearing fire trucks leaving the station around the corner all morning and I expected that he wanted to go see them. John, of course, had a different agenda. He turned the other direction and headed in toward the college.

First, I was impressed that he remembered the way so well. (We had walked/scootered in together last week when Jeremy and I had to make a quick changeover at the office.) Then, I was surprised that he wanted to make the entire 0.5 mile-trip in. But, he made a beeline, then turned in at the door to my building, waiting expectantly for me to open it.

I explained that we weren't actually going in to switch with Dad this time, since I (unfortunately) hadn't planned to be here and so wasn't dressed in work clothes and hadn't brought any lunch. John was not impressed with my logic. He marched me inside the building. He set off at a run for my office. He couldn't remember which door it was, but helpfully stopped at each one and either peered in or asked in a loud voice, "Is this your office, Mommy?" So much for an incognito walk through my "workspace" while dressed convincingly in my bedraggled Mommy outfit. Where is a phone booth these days when a SuperMom needs one? I caught up to him and explained that I didn't even have my office keys with me, so we couldn't go in my office. Not a deterrent to John.

He came instead to Daddy's office, and began banging on the door to be let in. Turns out he remembered writing all OVER the wall in Mommy's office last week (nice big, clean white board) and was not going to be denied the repeat experience by something so trivial as Mom forgetting her keys. (I continue to live in the vain hope that he absorbed the repeated instruction that writing on the wall with a marker is only allowed at the office. And not on the concrete block beneath the white board.)

Mission accomplished, he then took me on a walk of the building (we dropped off some mail and other errands) then returned to pick up Daddy and walk him home.

By the time we got home, he was ready to dig in the garden. I, however, was tired.

I later in the day saw a woman running, with a dog on a leash trailing behind. She seemed oblivious to the fact that her poor dog was being dragged along behind her, appearing barely able to keep up. The dog kept skipping a step or two to increase his cadence and avoid strangulation by the leash. Somehow, after my walk led by John on his scooter, I felt oddly sympathetic to that dog.

Odd coincidence

On Monday mornings, I take John (2 yrs) to swim lessons at the local health club. While he swims for 30 minutes and then plays in the hot shower for 30 minutes, I try to catch up a bit on work. Today, I was reviewing the textbook section that I would be teaching from later in the day. It seemed like standard enough poolside reading to me:
Transport Processes and Separation Process Principles (Includes Unit Operations) 4th edition

First, a friend (fellow mother from James's original Lamaze class playgroup) walked by and commented that the reading didn't look like much fun to her. She kept on walking.

Then, a woman I didn't know edged closer and closer, staring at me. This was a bit more unsettling than it might otherwise have been because of all the social mores involved in the fact that I was sitting fully clothed outside John's shower stall while she was fully nude as she approached me after her own shower.

When she realized that I had noticed her staring at me, she spoke. "What class are you reading that for?" she asked with some incredulity.

"I am teaching at ______ College. In engineering."

"Oh, I am teaching a class using the same book right now. At WSU."

Sure, why not. There are probably at least 5 women in the state of Michigan teaching a chemical engineering course right now. Why not have two of them be using the same text and meet over a public shower? (Never mind that this requires her to have a 2.5 hr commute to work, which she has apparently been doing for the past several years.)

Lesson learned? Mixing work time and Mom time in my profession tends to be a bit of a hindrance to my meeting and getting along smoothly with other women. But never discount the possibility for the random statistical event.