Slow and Easy

Week 3, Day 2

Today has been a relatively slow and easy day.  I let each boy at the beginning of summer tell me one thing in particular they wanted to be sure that we do during Mellie Camp.  Max chose going to a playground.  The boy has loved playgrounds since he was a wee little boy.  A playground could not have come at a better time, for I was feeling all 66 of my years last night when I went to bed.

We went to Crockett Park, a large, shady playground.  On the way, we stopped to get big bottles of cold water and one not sweet snack per boy.  I had also packed kiwi, oranges, apples, Persian cucumbers and grape tomatoes.  As soon as we arrived, Max asked me to open his pretzels.  Somewhere in there, I mistakenly heard Simmy ask me to open his chips.  He did not want them then.  Sadly, when he came a few minutes later and sort of jerked them out of the cooler bag, they were upside down, and, seriously, how in the world every last one of them fell on the ground is a puzzle to me.  He was not happy and for the next half hour or so he lamented the loss and ranted about how it was my fault.  I just smiled, told him I was sorry it happened, and he got to choose if spilled chips would ruin his whole day or if spilled chips would just ruin his pleasure in eating chips.  He chose the former option for quite some time, but eventually moved on to bigger and better and more fun activities.

About ten minutes after we arrived at the quiet, sparsely populated park, a seemingly never-ending line of bigger, louder kids arrived.  I was not happy.  They did not stay even an hour and the quiet that resulted upon their departure was heavenly.  We stayed and played for a couple more hours.

Arriving at home, we had a much anticipated water balloon fight that lasted about 2 minutes.  Who knew that 2 boys could throw that many water balloons at each other and their Mellie so quickly.  It was fun and getting wet felt marvelous.  This was followed by pizza for lunch (thank you, Aunt P), writing in journals, tie dying another shirt (did not turn out that well), and playing cards on Mellie's bed.

Because I was so wiped out last night, I requested that if boys could be picked up early today, I would not be disappointed.  Marsh called around 2:00 and said, "do you want to get rid of him badly enough to meet me somewhere in Brentwood?" Now, I probably would not have worded it quite that way, but I responded with "tell me where.  I'm on my way."  So, boys are home.

Tomorrow is another big day and could result in another day of obnoxious posting on FB.  I am most appreciative of my FB friends who have such kind comments, and most understanding of those who must roll their eyes and wonder why I feel the need to so over share.  It is to remember and to let Sheri, in particular, who is at work, see what Max is doing throughout the day.  I hope it brings her some joy to know that he's having fun and is well taken care of.

For now, I have a good book (good, in that it's entertaining, not good in that I would ever recommend it), a fairly cool house, and a sofa calling my name.