April 23: We’re having a glorious day today. It’s about 1:30, and already we’ve had a full day’s worth of activities. We took the van in to get serviced, dropped Bryan off at work, went to the bakery so Andrew and I could enjoy cupcakes together, stopped in at the library and got some books, met friends at the zoo, and had a beautiful picnic lunch with same friends as boys romped about in the green green grass.
And at the moment (and when I say moment, I mean this one minute time period), both children are either asleep or at least resting quietly. Ahhh.
As I was trying to get Andrew in his car seat after our picnic, he wouldn’t go and Sylvia was screaming in my arms, making it difficult to just hoist the little guy into his seat. But a woman in the next car over noticed my predicament and offered her help. So she put Andrew in his seat (and he was so surprised he didn’t protest at all) while I buckled in Sylvia. And yesterday it was pouring rain and one of the volunteers at Olbrich offered to watch the kids while I drove the car around to the front so I wasn’t trying to get them both in the car in the rain. My initial response to such offers is, “No, that’s alright, I’ve got it.” But these past days, it’s felt really liberating to sort of acknowledge that sometimes the two kids is a bit bigger of a job than one adult with only two hands can manage. I’ve been feeling pretty good about accepting help from strangers. Makes life feel more manageable!
Pictures from the last several days are in the gallery.
Althea, Bryan, Andrew, and Sylvia