Friday, April 19, 2013

Swingin' in the Rain

Things have gotten better since my last post. They might have gotten worse first though. That night I finally got Maggie to sleep, and left Amos to fall asleep on his own. A few minutes later, I heard Amos and MAGGIE playing! He woke her up. I sent him right to timeout. Where I left him. Until he fell asleep. Oops. It actually didn't take that long, which makes me conclude that I am right, they are tired, they just won't quit monkeying around.

The next day we had another (and thankfully final) failed attempt at the park. It was sunny when we left our building, but by the time we got there, an arctic rain was falling. It wasn't the nice Seattle mist either, it was real rain. Not able to bear the thought of going back to the apartment without getting some energy out, we stayed and tried to play in it. It was freezing and we were all soaked. Luckily Amos came up with a way to make it more manageable:

Since that day we have had three WONDERFUL days at the park. One day I even managed to get Wardie the teensiest bit of a sunburn.

Yesterday Amos asked me if he could bring a bunch of paper airplanes to the park for his friends. Sure, why not? The minute we got to the park Amos ran up to a boy just his age and said,

"Hi, will you be my friend?"

while thrusting a paper airplane in his face. Awesome. The boy was playing with his dad, so he looked to him for approval, and when his dad nodded, the boys were off. They played and played. The boy had a baseball with him, and he and Amos found a stick and soon had their own little sandlot going. Inevitably, the ball hit Amos square in the face and he came running over with blood pouring out of his nose.

We got him all cleaned up, assessed that there wasn't really any damage, and then he declared:

"It's ok, we are still friends!"

Sure enough. Thankfully, after that they switched to soccer.

Eventually the boy had to go, and Amos spent the rest of our park time finding more friends to bestow his paper airplanes on.

One thing I am noticing is that no one seems to come out if it's raining. My kids did not get that memo. (Arctic) rain or shine, they are ready to play.