Raiders of the Lost Ark

5am, Friday. I woke up on the couch again. This time my waker was Ara dropping a wiggly baby into my lap. Then she zombie-walked away, back to the bedroom. Half asleep myself, I tried to soothe wiggly Kaj back to sleep using all my usual tricks. But he was wide-eyed and squirming in my arms. Finally, as the sunlight started hitting the living room, he held still for a few moments. His eyes were staring right at me.

Me: “Hi, Kaj. Are you gonna go back to sleep, little guy?”

Kaj: “Nope.”

I was pretty much wide awake myself. Decided to put him in the sling and take a morning stroll down St. Clair Ave. Kaj was still wide awake, head slightly peering out of the sling with intense little eyes as we walked. On three separate occasions, jogging women stopped jogging to peek in at him in the sling and comment on his cuteness (I hadn’t showered or put on real clothes yet, otherwise I’d have gotten comments, too…).

We walked all the way to the river, and as I was turning around to walk back home with Kaj still looking out at the world, I noticed a subtle little path going into the woods on the bluffs. So I followed it, and it led us through a maze of awesome narrow trails and cliff rocks to climb. It was like an Indiana Jones discovery. We loved it. And there were so many paths we didn’t even try, because we wanted to save them for next time.

I’m so glad that little Kaj wiggled me awake to take me there.