These were the to-be logistics of this afternoon's trip: walk to the park, play for 15 minutes, walk home. I still had hopes of getting a run in, and Dan wanted to finish putting up the basketball hoop that we bought last week. Honestly, so did I.
I got full agreement from the Leatherkids that they'd comply with these guidelines. But of course I did.
The walk there went exactly as I had expected. Early on, Cal was looking for a stick to use as his cane for the walk, and Ella couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted to ride in the wagon with her baby or just pull her baby in the wagon herself with no help from me. She started in the wagon with me pulling (as Cal looked for his stick); and after 17 steps, she was clamoring to get out to walk and pull the wagon herself.
Cal never did find that walking stick and decided he wanted to ride. Ella was just grabbing the handle of the wagon when Cal stepped in it; and as he was turning to situate himself on the back seat, she pulled. And he fell out the back, not entirely, just enough to scrape his hands, which, apparently was extremely painful because he exploded into tears. Ella felt terrible and apologized profusely, shedding some tears herself. I brushed off his hands, where I saw no blood and the smallest of scrapes. It really could have been worse.
They both got over it pretty quickly, and Ella proceeded to pull the wagon with Cal in it. He's 50+ pounds now, so this wasn't easy for her (heck, it's not easy for me). I watched her zig-zag her way down the sidewalk like a drunken sailor. At what point does one step in and help? For me, at least during the first couple of minutes, it was when she zagged her way into the grass. Clearly, she wouldn't be able to get the wagon moving forward again should one of its wheels fall off the sidewalk and on the grass. I needed to push it out. After a couple of minutes of this, with that mental checklist of things yet to do still going strong, I could barely deal with even the zigs on the sidewalk. And then I thought to myself, "who's the parent here? Make up some rules. Get some control of this." And I made a move to grab the handle.
This was risky -- ordinarily, this might result in a total meltdown. Not let Ella pull the wagon with Cal in it all the way to the park when she wants to despite the fact that she really can't? How could I even suggest this?
The risk paid off -- without any resistence, Ella hopped into the wagon with Cal, and I pulled them the rest of the way to the park... all 100-ish pounds of them in that plastic wagon.
There were a lot of kids already at the park, which Cal made it a point to announce as we got there. Earlier, I had tried repeatedly to use the excuse that it would be too wet there, that we'd go to the park tomorrow. It actually had rained a lot recently... two days ago. Surely it still had to be wet. They didn't buy it. Anyway, once we were there, I reminded them they have 15 minutes and that I'd be timing it. Yeah, right. I mean, I was timing it, but... you'll see...
For the most part, the kids are pretty independent at the park, only occasionally needing my help or attention. Ella needed help with the monkey bars (she can't do them at all), sliding down the fireman's pole (she's just a little too short to reach out to it on her own) and swinging (we are so close to not having to push her). And Cal only needed help with the... I don't know what it is... handle from which one hangs and slides down a long track from side to side. So every once in awhile I had to cater to their needs; otherwise, I was planted on a bench facing away from the sun, a perfect spot to watch Cal do the monkey bars on his own, which I do truly enjoy. I especially enjoyed watching him try to one-up the slightly older girls who were also doing the monkey bars. I don't know if he realized it, but he lost the battle. Afterall, they could skip bars.
At one point, a couple of other kids hopped into our wagon, the thrilling ride that it is. Each of the Leatherkids had different reactions -- I watched Ella hand her doll and our frisbee to one of the kids in the wagon before walking away and then Cal taking that same doll and frisbee from the kid and proceeding to push the wagon backwards, I'm hoping not attempting to spill the kids from the wagon. And then I tried to reason in my head why it is that Ella's so much of a better sharer than Cal is, not unlike how my sister, Erin, and I were (I was not a good sharer). I concluded that, as the second child, nothing is ever just hers -- she either inherits stuff from Cal or has always had a second person around to use her stuff.
Anyway, as expected, 15 minutes (actually, 15:33 by my timer -- I have my own quirks) became 31 despite my weak attempts at adhering to it. Oh, I gave a 2-minute warning at 13-ish minutes, which was ignored. When I announced it was time to go, Ella insisted they have more time.
"Okay, 2 more minutes," I said.
"4 minutes," she came back with.
"Okay, 4 minutes," I agreed, as if she even has any concept of what 4 minutes is.
Disapponted that I had agreed so quickly, she tried, "6 minutes."
"4 minutes," I insisted. And that was the end of that.
16 minutes later, I announced again it was time to leave and chased them down this time. I meant it. This could have gone much worse than it did, and we were at the wagon fairly quickly. Maybe a half hour is the right amount of park time.
Cal quickly got situated on his seat in the wagon, and Ella insisted she pull him again. Goodness. My mental checklist was flashing red at this point, as was my patience. But I let her try. It didn't take long for her to want to just ride herself; so I pulled them most of the way home from the park, my preference over either one of them doing so for sure, but... they're heavy. And I was tired. And I had things to do.
Looking back, I'm glad we went. It was too nice a day not to be outside and active, and the Leatherkids owned that park. They really do love it. And maybe I enjoyed it more than I can even recognize due to it not being on that mental checklist (which happens to have a couple more things checked off of it now).
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