Perpetual motion is defined as the action of a device that,
once set in motion, would continue in motion forever, with no additional energy
required to maintain it. I'm guessing everyone has heard of the concept at one
time or another.
For me, I'm pretty sure my first introduction to perpetual
motion was in Mrs. Tushaus' 9th grade science class, sometime after the unit
where I couldn't light a match but before the one where I put vegetable oil and
water in a Coca-Cola bottle. True story, the aforementioned match scenario was
when my college roommate, Joey, and I first met or at least his first memory of
me. I tried and tried as hard as I could
but I lacked the basic ability to both light a match and keep it lit.
When Ellie was a baby, the concept of perpetual motion was crucial
to our sanity. As long as Ellie was in her swing and it was moving, she was
happy. For that very reason, Ellie spent 92% of the first year of her life buckled
into her swing. While Ethan doesn't believe in the concept of perpetual motion
to the degree that his sister did, it is still quite important to him. That can
be seen by taking a glance back at the events of our morning.
Early this morning, Ellie made a relatively simple request.
What she wanted to do more than anything today was go to storytime at the
library. Obviously, that's a pretty normal request in our home and as such, it
was one I was willing to oblige. As the morning went along though, Ellie's zeal
for going to storytime waned. In fact, at one point she flat out said, "I
don't want to go to storytime today." Oddly enough though, before another
30 minutes had expired, she had changed her mind and we were going again. There
was still one minor roadblock though. It's name? Ethan.
One thing you should know about Ethan is that he really
likes his morning nap. In fact, he normally wants to go down in his crib within
an hour of Bethany leaving for work. On this occasion though, he was sleeping
as soundly as a deaf camel in a sandstorm. I actually don't know how good that
comparison is but it sounds good, right? Obviously, the last thing I wanted to
do was wake him. Therefore, I sat and watched the clock as potential storytime
starting times passed us by. Finally, as the clock read 10:40, Ethan awoke from
his slumber and requested a bottle in his own special way.
Very quickly, I fed Ethan a bottle and got him dressed so
that we could hop in the car and head to Woodneath for storytime. Knowing that
we were in a bit of a time crunch, I chose to take the back roads thinking I'd
avoid traffic. Unfortunately for us, that was not to be on this day. As I
approached the overpass for I-435, I was dismayed to find traffic coming to a
complete stop as part of a funeral procession. This was not your normal funeral
procession though. The police not only had the road blocked from both
directions but also had between 12 and 16 motorcycle cops on hand. I can't be
certain as to the number as it's hard to count something like that behind the
wheel of a car.
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| Photographic evidence of our plight. |
As we sat in traffic, Ethan began to make his displeasure
with our current state of affairs known. As long as the car was moving, he was
fine. However, once we stopped moving, his discontent became obvious. As the
minutes ticked by, I continually reassured my son that everything was ok and we
would get moving again soon. Finally, the time had come and we could move
again.
You could probably
guess this but our little delay made us late in getting to the library for storytime.
Since I knew that was the case, I decided to attempt something new once we
arrived at Woodneath. I normally just leave Ethan in his car seat or carry him
in my arms during these times. Today though, I decided instead to strap him
onto my chest and wear him into the library.
While this mostly ended up being a good thing, there were a
couple of shortcomings. Number one being that I had to be in that state of
perpetual motion to keep Ethan happy. There was no "holding up" walls
or sitting down for me. If I wasn't moving, Ethan was going to make his
displeasure known.
The second thing may
or may not be a shortcoming; I can't be completely sure. As we headed into the
library, Ethan on my chest and Ellie's hand in mine, we encountered a nice old
grandma with her granddaughter. I don't pay much attention until I overhear Grandma's
words: "Look at that dad. He's
wearing his baby. He must be some kind of super dad." While those
aren't necessarily bad words, they are mildly embarrassing. That's especially
true when one hears variations of that comment several more times after
entering the library.
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| Hi baby friend. |
If I really was Super Dad, you know I'd have the super power
of effortless perpetual motion instead of having to put in the work. Oh well,
at least it's a good workout. I'll bet it even burns lots of calories.
#DaddyWrite
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| Hey, at least the three of us took a really cute selfie today. |
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