January is a weird time in Northern Climates. Christmas is over, but it’s still dark as hell. Some of the lights and such are still up, but instead of looking bright and cheerful – they look sad and disheveled. At night they still twinkle and you can almost forget how dry the pine needles are during the day and how tattered the bows have become. Sidewalks are increasingly lined with discarded tree carcasses – I even saw a box on someone’s doorstep labelled simply “TREE BALLS.” Oh, how I wish there hadn’t been another pedestrian passing by that I could have snapped a photo without looking like a total creep. *sigh* At least I have TREE BALLS in my memory.

We’ve been on a lot of walks around the neighborhood lately. It’s been too cold/slippery to spend much time at the playground, so we stick to circling around and around in the stroller. Doesn’t hurt that I found that a David’s Tea recently opened up a few blocks south of us. (Well, except it hurts my wallet. But oh so worth it.)

Just got back from a night time stroll and I can’t tell if it was a success or a disaster. As you can see, P fell asleep in the stroller. This wasn’t exactly my intent. I was trying to wear him out – he’s decided that bedtime no longer applies to him and oh gourd is that ever not an ok state of affairs. I’m wracking my brain for things to do to get him to sleep and all I can think of is to wear him out since he’s not big on being soothed. So. An extra walk after he got into his PJs was on the menu for today. We’ve been home for about an hour and he’s still not asleep, though the screaming that started when I transferred him from the stroller has toned down to chirping and chatting.

While I try not to be nice and quiet so that he won’t get the idea that anything FUN is going on here, I think I’m going to brew up some of my wonderful tea and sit and giggle to myself about TREE BALLS for a while.