perspective

It is all about perspective around here. Today was an absolutely beautiful day! It was near 70 degrees and the sun was shining. I was exercising after school and thought to myself "this is dumb, I should go pick up the girls earlier than normal and take them to the park." So I did. Made it home, changed clothes and headed to the park. Just me and the girls. Just me maggie and anna, who happens to be a full blown walker. Just us and every other care giver and their children-ehh, maybe just every kid that lives in a mile radius of the park. not a lot of supervision going on so I was worried the game of tags the bigger kids were playing was going to cause a problem for the girls. It became clear it was time to go and I "thought" we were ready. So I thought. Maggie wasn't quite as ready. Meanwhile anna is climbing out of my arms. This is after she has tried to eat every single leaf by the playground and did manage to get a good handful of dirt. Ok, so back to leaving. After the two minute warning, I grabbed young Maggie's hand and reminded her we were leaving. This is when things went south. "NO! I want to go to the park!!" (Second verse same as the first, a whole lot louder and a whole lot worse!)Now, we're getting stares. All sorts of stares. The sympathetic type. The my kid would never do that look. The why don't you show that kid who is boss look. And my favorite the I'm so glad that's not me look. We made it to the car. I gathered my senses looked at the clock and we had been there for a full 30 minutes. Perspectives: I was pleased that we, just the 3 of us, made it a half and hour without a stroller. Maggie thought we weren't there nearly long enough. I'm sure anna was thinking "here we go again...we leave places and that girl loses her mind." Then my thoughts quickly changed: 1. when should we have left? 2. maybe we should have waited until after dinner. That was before we sat down to eat. Tonight's dinner was quite possibly the worst display of behavior we have had at home during a meal time. Ever!

There you have it. My hands were full. Full in a good way. The kind of full that makes me want to try again tomorrow.

For a moment after dinner the house was silent and I heard jason say "ahh, that's nice"
Please note: I read this to jason and he said why do you keep emphasizing "just the three of us?" Are you trying to make me look bad? No, absolutely not. I laughed and told him "No, I just think it is funny that I thought it was a good idea to take them by myself." Moral of the story: don't take 2 young children to the park on the first warm day of the year, after school and before dinner by yourself!!