My Little Babe-sicle

Annalise really hates her new jogging stroller. She starts screaming the moment she is lowered into it. This puts a distict cramp in my weight-loss style. As you might imagine, it is very stressful to have a tiny tot screaming like you are plucking off her toenails while all you are trying to do is to go far enough to burn off a bite of the luscious brownie you enjoyed last night while watching The Biggest Loser and marveling at how quickly they drop weight.

So yesterday I thought I would give her a break and put her in the Ergo (decidedly less enjoyable for Mommy than pushing her in her Cadillac of strollers but I am so thoughtful) while we went on a walk with her little pal Anna and Anna's mommy Audrey. (For the record, Anna sat happily and silently in her stroller the entire time and enjoyed a piece of bread. Then she fell asleep even though it wasn't nap time. That is Anna for you.) Annalise, on the other hand, is such a problem child that I forewent the stroller entirely to avoid her tidal wave of tears and out we went.

A mile or two out, it began to rain.

"Maybe it will stop soon," we said.

Then it began to pour.

"Maybe not," we said.

It was about 40 degrees out. It was freezing. And Annalise, not encased in her very luxurious waterproof stroller with the cover that could outwit a monsoon, was also refusing to have her head covered and thus became soaked through and screamed in frozen wet agony for the half hour it took to hike home. Her little lips and scars from the dog bite turned purple. The rain poured down her head and face while she wailed at the top of her lungs and stared at me like she couldn't understand why I was doing this to her. It was heartbreaking. Her lower lip rattled and shook with the cold and I had to take her out of the Ergo and hold her with both arms as she squirmed and fought against me while Audrey tried to push her stroller with one hand and hold an umbrella over us with the other.

"Maybe this will be funny when it's over?" I croaked as I looked up to see a school bus driver laughing at our ridiculous sodden parade as he passed.

Well, it's definitely over. But... nope. Even in retrospect, not too comical.