Picnic at the park

The kids are downstairs watching a movie and here I sit, ignoring the mess in the office, and wishing that Andrew was online. He is. But he's not actually there. He's probably going out to dinner again (*sigh*). Last night his hosts took him to a Middle Eastern restaurant and he saw a BYU Arabic professor there—they both did double takes because why would a BYU professor see a BYU student in a restaurant in North Carolina in the middle of the semester? Turns out she was there for a conference on teaching Arabic. We all know why Andrew's there.

It seems like he's loving it out there so far but I'll wait to write about it until he gets back.

But I will say that when he was in Bloomington he went to a restaurant, which he described as a hippie restaurant, where every dish was prepared from 100% local things. They told you the name of your cow and what field s/he grew up in. They told you the name of your fish and what river s/he was caught in. They told you where your lettuce was grown and where your tomatoes came from. It reminded me of Portlandia. Anyway...

Today was supposed to be a lovely, warm day, but it ended up being overcast and windy. But still warm enough. The girls spent the morning destroying the house while they changed clothes and played with the dress ups and danced in the living room. There are clothes scattered all over their room (and the office) and yet Miriam is sitting downstairs in her underwear watching the movie. Silly girl.

I told the girls we could go to the park after I finished cleaning the bathrooms.

I'm a realist when I make my to-do lists (at least when I'm pregnant) and today's list said: toilets and towels. My friend said on facebook, "Yay! I got two things crossed off my to-do list," and I was like, "Ha! I only put two things on my to-do list!"


So I felt like a hero when I cleaned the entire bathroom and washed the towels. Because that's more than two—toilets and counters and floors and towels? That's four things.

While I was cleaning the bathrooms, though, the girls decided on a picnic and raided the pantry to pack lunches for us. Since they were already packed and ready to go (we're talking shoes and jackets on) I consented to the picnic.

It would have been far better to eat at home, really, because we picked up a friend on the way and then a little ways down the street were joined by another little family in our neighbourhood who spotted us walking to the park. We don't mind being joined by friends at the park but I was beginning to wonder if our cheese and crackers and strawberries would stretch far enough to share. I was ravenous by the time we got to the park and tend to be a little overprotective of my food when I'm pregnant, especially this pregnancy because I have two little vultures circling me at all times and have been prone to fainting spells so I act a bit like a mother brear: "No! This is my food! Let me eat it before I fall over! Rawr!"

We set up our blanket and got out our food. Miriam, the thoughtful child, had packed enough fruit snacks to feed a small nation so we shared those, as well as a bit of our cheese and crackers, before I announced that I was going to eat, children be darned!

I didn't feel too bad about not sharing all of our food (like the few strawberries we brought—even though little Emily came up and watched me eat my strawberry, saying, "Hey—I didn't get a strawberry. I didn't get a strawberry. Hey—I didn't. get. a. strawberry!") because I knew all the other kids had already eaten their lunch (so I'd just say, "Sorry. You already ate lunch. Now it's our turn. Run and play.").

It was a much pleasanter experience at the park after we had finished eating, that's for sure.

And can you believe that I didn't take a single picture of my kids playing in the sand or Miriam swinging or anything? Believe it!

Miriam sat in every swing on the swingset—there are six of them. She's say, "I'm tired of swinging. Will you get me down?" and then she'd immediately ask to swing on the next swing over. Silly girl.

Rachel and her friends were involved in a reenactment of the story of Make Way for Ducklings, which both Rachel and Leslie had read yesterday (Emily hadn't but she quickly caught on). They called my friend Mrs. Mallard and they all had names—Nack, Mack, Quack, Pack...I can't remember which ones they were—and spent their time building nests in the sand and sliding down the slide water fountain and flying on the swings (on their stomachs). They had fun.

It was a good day. I just wish it were a little sunnier out.

Now to make dinner and tidy up the office...

Oh, my friend posted a funny card from someecards.com, which I found hilarious:



I reshared it on facebook and my cousin-in-law Lindsey commented, "And can you believe that they actually want to [be] bathed too? Gosh, such selfish behavior!"

Speaking of realism...I only bathe my kids once or twice a week. I can't even imagine getting them in the tub and through a bath before bed every single night. Sometimes I like to think of it as my own little act of water conservation...