My Perfect Outing

Apr 21, 2010 by Ange

Every day, I mentally try to force the chaos of the day into the paradigm of floating zen music bowls rather than a highway pile up in the fog. By taking several deep breaths in a kind of impromptu meditation, I can usually force down the daily irritations. However, at roughly high noon, I need release from the physical, emotional, and mental attention that my family requires of me.

Now and then, the camera gods give me a sign. Today it was a drop of water hitting the burgeoning clematis outside my glass door. The way the leaf shivered was like a rippling chime echoing through my mind telling me that I should observe some quiet wonders the outdoor world always offers. With that need pulling me through the morning, I herded my children into a state of relative outing-readiness and fled the house before the countdown precipitated by diaper-cleanliness and belly-emptiness forced me back indoors.

Walking observantly through our wet neighbourhood with my little daughter’s hand distractedly clutching one hand, my sleeping-son-in-stroller being managed with some difficulty by the other, I was able to snap detail photos of many of the luscious spring flowers we passed. Working our way down to the Songhees waterfront trail, I named the plants and flowers I recognized and pointed out the colours of the ones I did not. The biggest hit for B, however, was the enormous yellow (‘lellow’) helicopter that passed close overhead, making a wide loop before landing at the Coast Guard station across the harbour.

                   
click on images for full view

Upon arriving at the beach by the gazebo and awkwardly making our way down the stairs backwards with the unwieldy stroller, B promptly overflowed her boots in the frigid ocean water. Then she slipped and fell up to her armpits in the same. She laughed and grinned at me with glee. I was so shocked that she wasn’t crying with discomfort and wet surprise that I forgot to be dismayed at the cleanup and logistics her impromptu polar dip would cost.

Two groups of people stopped and smiled and laughed delightedly as she busily worked away on her excavation and exploration projects. I smiled with them, marveling at the joy the simple antics of little kids can bring people.

I took photos of beach detritus and chose pieces of sand-scoured glass to include in future jewelry projects until she had enough of excavating muddy sand from one pile to another. Her strong little hands had grown numb and sore with the cold and she quietly told me that she had an owie and would like to go home. This took some consideration. How was I going to transfer my freezing little girl home in the cold air for several blocks?

I gently tried to clean most of the sand off her hands and face with a wet wipe. This elicited grimaces of discomfort from her and I explained that when hands get too cold they really hurt. Also, tossing sand in the air and catching it with your face can make your eyes hurt. Also, salty sand in your diaper can hurt. Hopefully those lessons will stick.

I put my two month G in the Ergo carrier on the front and put a base blanket down in the stroller for B. She was then was stripped to her diaper as quickly as I could, stuffed in the stroller, feet bunched up with no skin exposed, then covered with the other two blankets.

She loved it. She said she was ‘wrapped like a baby’ the same way she does when I haul her out of the tub. I asked her if she was warm enough, and she grinned and nodded, “mmm-hmm!”

Making our way back, I snapped a few more shots that I had regretted missing on the way there, getting several odd looks from joggers as I crouched over this flower or that. Several smiles at my swaddled girl from the same – what can I say? I just can’t compete with those big blue eyes.

                   

Upon making it home, she was stripped, soaped, showered, swathed, snacked, and sleeping all within a VERY short period of time. G was pretty much blissfully oblivious to events at this point, as his current favourite locale is on me somewhere. Note that all clean-up events occurred with him strapped snugly to my chest. Yes, I am bragging.

And so, the sopping, sandy clothes, and the boots needing multiple rinses with scalding water and the three days of blasting with the fan are truly a small price to pay for such a perfect outing. Trying to take the zen bowl verses the car pileup paradigm seriously. And succeeding. Yay me!