I finally made it out for a run.  (Ok, more of a run/walk if I’m being honest.)  It only took a little over a year since the last one.  This was sadly the first time I used the stairs in our building.  Every other outing, I have been accompanying a toddler or the stroller and opted for the elevator.

I got to explore more of Villa Ada.  This is a mega-huge park a few blocks from our house.  We’ve all been to the dog park on the fringe, but had not yet made it inside.  I aimed to remedy that.

I jogged over the footpath and found myself in the woods.  Very tall trees/shrubs and muddy paths.  Huh.  After the manufactured beauty of Villa Borghese, it was not at all what I expected.  But it was great for running.  The trees provided shade and the dirt was nice and soft.  My only worry was getting lost.  I ran and ran.  (Probably only like 10 minutes.)  Eventually, I found a clearing and turned back.  There are supposed to be gardens and lakes and all sorts of other things in this park.  I’ll have to come back.

It was a good run.  Good to get out of the house.  Henry seemed to miss me.  Once he realized I was not anywhere in the house, he apparently had a minor freak out.  When he learned what I was doing, he wanted to go running too.  (I’m sure I’ll have a good running buddy very soon.)

Henry misses his dad too during the days.  He talks about him much more now than I ever remember happening when we both worked.  “Daddy? Daddy?”  Now it is “Daddy working” said randomly throughout the day.  When we were in DC, I think he thought James worked in the car.

We have had workers in our place three out of the last four days.  There was some sort of water leak in the unit below, which meant a lot of drilling and patching in our unit.  All the workers were male.  Henry has been good about staying out of the way.  “Men working.”  “Men working.”

One of Henry’s sweet new friends got him a Lego set for his birthday.  It’s really cool.  It has a working dump truck.  It also has a little man in a construction vest.  So now even more “Man working, man working.”

To sum it up, we have a lot of men working around here.  I’m sure I’ll work again some day, but it is weird to think that the kids will (very probably) never know me as a biglaw type.  I’ll tell a story some day about “when I worked at that big law firm” and they won’t really get it.  It will just be a story.

And I know Henry will see plenty of women working, even if I’m not at the moment.  He’s only 2.  There’s time.  But it is nice to have a thing that Mommy does.  Something that takes her outside the house.  Something easier to explain than “Mommy blogging.”