Good Evening

It's a good, good night when we can get out for a nice summer walk after dinner. Usually, the fog has rolled in by then (or never left!), and a family walk in drippy fog is no fun for anyone. But tonight was beautiful and warm!! And even though Matt was working late, I was feeling ambitious after our girls' pizza night and I decided to take the girls out to play at the school around the corner from our house. They were beyond excited for a bike ride/scooter ride, and I had this view on the way there:

Four independent girls! I could not have imagined this three years ago! (I guess it would have been appropriate for them to wear helmets. Oops!!)

And, of course, I had Mary to keep me company bringing up the rear.

The girls had a blast getting some energy out and perfecting their technique with their respective vehicles.

Yep, those are (still) training wheels on those bikes above. Obviously, this bike-riding doesn't happen often enough around here! I'll add that to the list of things to feel guilty about.

No outing is ever perfect, though, especially when there is only one parent along, and no day would be complete for us without a little drama. Although I warned everyone that bathrooms would not be available at the school, and to go before we left, we had to make a sudden departure because Megan had to go now. While she miraculously got herself and her bike all the way back to our house on her own, others slowly started losing momentum. The last five minutes of the walk found me schlepping Mary in the baby carrier, and balancing two scooters, and one bike in my two arms, while practically kicking three kids along the sidewalk. It was quite the scene as we made our way back up the street, and one friendly neighbor observed in a thick Chinese accent, "Wow. You have lot of kids to babysit." (Ah, wouldn't that be nice? No such luck.) When we finally arrived to our driveway, we found Megan...and a puddle. And, worse yet, she was wearing her favorite silver Toms. I think both of us were more concerned about her shoes than anything else, especially after one of us said that we needed to throw them away because they were ruined. (Bad mom, bad mom!)

So, our "good evening" ended with me googling just how to wash Toms, and questioning exactly what I was thinking taking them out like that. We did have fun for a little while, though. I think I earned some mom points in their eyes for the effort. I felt like a rock star for a moment at the beginning of the walk, and all's well that begins well, right? Something like that!


- posted from my handy-dandy iPhone, with Blogpress