Making Small Allowances For Fun

My bib overall wearing wonder bun's new tent, not my lounge.

It feels like everything is in slow-motion this time of year. Besides the post-holiday lag, our goats are all dried off and preparing for kidding season. The weather is gray and depressing. Everything is soggy, boggy, and muddy. It’s too cold to be outside, and one bib overall wearing wonder buns finds himself feeling twitchy and depressed. One would think he would be happy with a bit of downtime after the holiday rush, but rather than breathe and recoup his energy, he fusses, gets twitchy, and, if I’m honest, he’s somewhat irritable.

My fuzzy-bottomed busy bee is usually up at the crack of dawn. However, this time of year, he permits himself a few days of sleeping in. Some mornings he sleeps until six. Usually, twice a week, he allows himself to sleep until the unreasonable hour of eight. He informs me that half the day is wasted by six a.m.; by eight, the day is a total wash. Although he sleeps in, he never changes his alarm. Every morning at 4:45, his alarm goes off and is set to an obnoxious rooster-crowing setting. Rather than turn the alarm off, he hits snooze five hundred times. It’s an unpleasant way to begin the day, to say the least. He and The Bean can sleep through the alarm, but I am awake when the damn rooster crows.

The rooster crowing alarm is obnoxious, but it is even more cringe-worthy because The Bibbed Wonder is asleep in the room beneath my room. You see, dear reader, my darling man-child husband received a new tent for Christmas. Like an overly excited child, he set up said tent in the lounge just off our kitchen. We refer to this room as “the piano room” because GramBarb’s player piano is at home there. One bib overall wearing wonder buns has had his new tent set up in the piano room since Christmas day. Sigh. He tells me he is practicing his camping skills. I don’t have the heart to make him take his tent down. It’s not hurting anything. It gives my man-child husband a reason to giggle and makes him happy. This time of year, anything goes.

Over Christmas vacation, The Bean “camped” with her dad in the piano room, but the novelty has worn off, and she now just laughs and shakes her head at his antics. At least one of my children is moving into adulthood and mature decision-making. Other than the sound of the annoying rooster alarm setting, I find his excitement over his new tent charming and humorous. However, you will not catch me sleeping in a tent, whether in the house or the woods. Why would I give up my perfectly perfect Tempurpedic mattress for an air mattress in the piano room? It’s insanity.

With the dark, dreary days, lack of activity, and the slowdown of sales, keeping one bib overall wearing wonder buns happy is more important than room aesthetics. He can play campout for as long as his little heart desires. Although, I may end his rooster alarm…insert a wink.

On this blustery winter day, stay safe, be smart, make small allowances for fun when things are bleak, and keep washing your hands.