Beechwood Farms Nature Reserve | Pittsburgh’s summer | Discovery Garden at Beechwood Farms | Family photo op, trail-side | Summer friends | Treats from La Gourmandine Bakery | Swinging skies | The Minion Movie
Don’t let these sunny images fool you. Even though Pittsburgh served up a gorgeous summer weekend, our family was hit with an Age 6 Hurricane this week.
It’s like some extra behavior fireworks exploded after the Fourth of July weekend, and we spent all week putting out sparks and fires that kept cropping up out of nowhere. Screaming and crying and yelling and hitting and shoving and whining and cycling through it all over again. All this from one little person who is now too awkwardly big to be hauled to her room by force.
So while moments of our weekend were great memories made, other moments deconstructed all joy and happiness, leaving us exhausted, wrung-out, and at a hands-thrown-up-in-defeat parenting loss.
Is the Age 6 Hurricane a thing at anyone else’s house?
Fortunately, some time spent in the presence of little yellow Minions and a pit stop at my favorite French bakery went far in redeeming the days. We explored Beechwood Farms Nature Reserve, as prompted by the Summer Bucket List, and discovered simple pleasures of toads, butterflies, tree houses, streams, and hiking trails. We swam at the neighborhood pool, at least until Miss Age 6 Hurricane was stung twice by a bee, which she weathered beautifully, but which also launched, rather inexplicably, an Age 3 Hurricane on our shores. Solidarity, perhaps? Copycat, perhaps? Tag-team, perhaps?
Hands-thrown-up-in-defeat parenting loss.
The weather forecast for the week ahead? It’s looking to be partly sunny with stray Age 3 and Age 6 Hurricanes popping up unexpectedly. Keep umbrellas and body armor handy.
Great post!! Tornado or maybe a sharknado is more like it.