If, for whatever reason, you believe that life is passing you by, that you are “going nowhere,” and all you do is work or do housework, then I may have a solution. If you are just tired of coming home and doing left-over dirty dishes, trying to clean a spot from the kitchen floor or other brain dead household activities, then I may have a solution. If you cannot go on a vacation now but want to do something to relieve all those problems I just mentioned, I may have a solution.
If you are retired do it soon or when you come in from work on Friday just tell your wife you heard of a solution to your dreary house work and you would like to try it. Spoiler alert: It will take some preplanning and changes in everyone’s daily routine. We did this and it really perked up our lives for a week. As you know, both Herself and I are retired which made it convenient as we could do a tag team match. I would definitely recommend having a partner who is able bodied and alert as it probably will take both of you.
We kept an 18 month old youngster who could tired out the Harlem Globetrotters before the end of the first quarter. Yessir, I can hear several of the less knowledgeable people saying that is rubbish. An 18 month old cannot be that much of a “handful.” Those people either a) never had kids, or b) never had boy kids or c) never had a hyperactive never sit still doing something all the time running and breaking and looking and dropping and generally so busy you check often to see if there are not two kids here and someone played a wild joke on you. Oh, we volunteered to do this as Mom and Dad needed to be out of town so Pop and Gramma said “Sure, we’ll keep the small child. How hard can that be?”
This was one of those cases when there was silence both of us turned on the panic alarm. Don’t get me wrong, he was never mean or hateful. This one was just too busy and wanted to do things HIS way and “leave me alone!” I think that attitude came from the other side of his family.  Things didn’t go well the first day even though we had been together many times. He had to learn new boundaries and we had to try to survive. Wellsir, half of that was accomplished.
For those silly people who want to offer advice and suggestions for the next time, don’t bother unless you have a pet tiger you have tamed by yourself. This little tiger cub was/is very intelligent, able to think at a very early age and can even reason out ideas or thoughts. He is advanced in almost every way but, sadly, his keepers weren’t. Like many stories you have heard, he was able to climb places a very small child shouldn’t be able to, he was able to get things and do things that almost amazed us and then demand water or other foods. He made it obvious when Pop made a treat that was not to his liking.
On the second morning, Pop figured out he liked to ride in his stroller so we went for a very long walk. Pop could not go to the gym so walking was good for both. Other than leg cramps and shin splints it was easy to know when we had gone our limit. When he took off his hat that he demanded to wear (HAT! HAT!), it was time to head for the house. Isn’t it amazing how some can communicate without using too many words? We walked each morning and each walk went farther from home. We discovered a small neighborhood play ground/park and that was a very good thing. I was completely amazed at how he could get up on platforms that were shoulder high to him. I did not help him but let him figure out the whole multi-level, multi-step big toy and he enjoyed every bit of it. He would not come down the slide and NO, I do not need advice in how to entice him to do that. Just leave well enough alone. We went there and did the swings the next day and walked almost a mile.
He is home now and we are back to our routine. It was almost 107 F today as I was running errands. I was less than a half mile from his house and I almost stopped to take him for a stroller ride but the heat dissuaded me. I miss him so much it is like a hole in my daytime life.
Your comments and/or responses are always welcome at  andfurthermore.net