Warm days and early blossoms

After a week of strong winds, we’re experiencing some unseasonably warm weather just now. This happens nearly every February; the weather will get nice enough for a day or two that you can temporarily forget how cold it usually is and get excited about spring. Then the temperatures plummet and anther six weeks of cold weather ensue.

Thus, you enjoy this pretense at mid-April while it lasts. I took Mr. K for a walk, as I do most days, and meandered over to the big local park where we discovered that even some of the trees had come to the pretend-spring party and blossomed.

In keeping with the theme of things, sedate blossom viewing was ensuing.

And into this scene of tranquility (inadvertently) crashed me and my angry son.

He seems to be going through a growth spurt right now and his sleeping patterns are all over the place. He is also particularly clingy and he had lost his dummy (pacifier) en route. He was in a rage. To top things off, I was armed with a much-needed coffee and a donut from the 7-11. Sitting on a park bench and sipping coffee, even with a crying baby attached, might be perfectly normal in my home country and yours, but not so much over here and especially not when there’s an unspoken expectation to maintain the atmosphere. A foreign woman, eating outside, with a crying baby in a pram? Forget channeling the spirit of old day Japan. We got an unusually high number of glares from elderly wanderers and amateur photographers.

So very tired…

Mr. K did eventually chill and fall asleep… right before we met a pair of women who also had babies and wanted theirs to meet mine. Sigh.

Still, it was a nice – if unintended – outing.