The husbands other new baby

My husband is not a spender. He can squeeze the life out of a nickel better than any two people I know. He also didn't get that "college days" portion of his life, skipping directly from a child to a husband and father. So it really didn't come as a surprise to me that he's having his "mid-life crisis" a little pre-mid-life. Last summer he bought a motorcycle, (although, with the gas prices so high it was actually the "responsible" thing to do!) and this summer he bought a raft.

For some people, the word "raft" brings to mind a few logs strapped together by Ginger and the Professor. Oh, no. This is a river raft with an aluminum oar frame. It's like a whitewater raft, only not really. He spent a lot of time researching these things. It's all he could talk about! (If you polled his co-workers, none of them would know the name of our 2 month old son, but most of them would be able to tell you that the husband just bought a 14 foot raft!) When our neighbor offered to give him an oar frame (retail:$600!) the husband was so excited! He was just like a little kid at Christmas time!

Rafting, or "floating the river" as it is called around here, is a major pastime in our neck of the woods. We live at the confluence of two famous rivers, one for being the longest, free-flowing river in the country (meaning it doesn't have any dams or locks or anything), and the other is famous for being the "river that runs through it" in the movie. I'm told that both rivers are excellent for fly-fishing. Not that we would know. We don't fish. (What if you catch something? Then what do you do with it? The step between casting a line and frying trout in butter is a step that I want to continue to skip!) And it's not like we're whitewater rafting, either. That looks scary. And you might spill your beer.

We've had this raft since April, and the husband has already floated four times. Personally, I like to wait for the temperature to go above 65 degrees before I set foot in a river consisting almost primarily of (just) melted snow. But last weekend, I was finally able to try out "our" latest toy. (And by "our" I mean "his". He swears it's for both of us, but he uses it frequently without me and I have a feeling that if I wanted to use it without him, he would have a serious fit.)

The husband's 13 year old son was visiting us for the weekend, so we went for a "float", the husband, the older boy, the angel and me. (Peanut is too small. It might not be whitewater, but it's still a river, ya know?) I packed sandwiches for a picnic. (This is what had been missing from the other floats, which is why you should always invite women...they often bring food.) The older boy had done this before, in fact, he floated much of the way on an inner tube, awkwardly perched like a cat in a bathtub! (That water is cold!!) The angel had never been on the river before, and her reaction was priceless! Everytime we would hit some rapids, or as she called them, "rabbits", she would shriek and giggle and carry on. Probably more than was really called for, since the "rapids" were about the size of a jet boat wake. She would call out, "Stir, Daddy, stir!" I guess she wasn't quite sure what he was doing with those big "spoons" on the side of the boat, but whatever it was, he should do it faster! We stopped on an island to enjoy our picnic, and both kids scarfed down the smoked turkey with pesto sandwich, proving they are less persnickity when they are genuinely hungry. A couple hours and a bottle of sunscreen later, we were done. Tired, dirty and a little chilled, we returned home to collect the peanut. (A nursing mamma needs her baby after a few hours apart!)

To be fair, we had a great time. It was wonderful to crack jokes and quote movies with the husband, to play word games with the kids, and to watch my step-son try to teach my angel how to skip rocks. Just the four of us, trapped together on a 14 foot raft with nothing to do but talk to each other and snack on Cheez-its. Maybe the raft wasn't such a silly purchase after all!