Beautiful Saturday

Saturday was the perfect perfect perfect day. We woke up early and happy. Left the house at 7:30am for the 1 1/2-mile walk to Half & Half in the foggy 65-degree morning. On the way, Milo and Oliver in the stroller, Emil strapped to me, Andrew pushing the big boys, I commented on the magical mist surrounding us. No, Mom. That’s fog. Oliver is turning into a real smarty-pants.

We ate a relatively peaceful breakfast, then headed to the nearby playground. It was still early enough that we were the first family there, so we goofed off pretty majorly- me chasing the boys and catching them for fierce mama-hugs, acting like a kid doing flips on the monkey-bars (I was sore all day Sunday), and slipping and sliding on the dewey play structure… Andrew making faces at the baby in the swing, then taking a turn with Milo in the saucer swing. By now the sun was shining brightly, warming up quickly.

We stayed awhile, and kept giving 5-minute warnings. But each time the 5 minutes was up, someone made an excuse about why we couldn’t leave quite yet. So we stayed a bit longer. And finally, as Emil protested the long morning excitement with no nap, we headed back, this time with Milo walking so that baby brother could get some much-needed shut-eye in the stroller. But keeping with the spirit of the morning, we took our merry time coming home, stopping to search for four-leaf clovers in little grassy patches, peeking into the windows of an old school, running up and down grassy hills and balancing along stone walls. We literally stopped to smell the flowers.

And then, finally, we were home. But instead of sitting down to rest and be lazy, we headed straight to the back yard with big glasses of ice water and marveled at the time (11:00!) and blew bubbles and played in the previous night’s rainwater. Andrew put together a potting bench and a kid’s-sized wheelbarrow while Milo, Oliver, and I pulled weeds and old branches and leaves out of the veggie garden to prepare it for planting. We found a gazillion worms and Oliver insisted on us handing them over to him, only for him to freak out and yelp, “I don’t yike them, they scary!” then “I want a wowm!” “Hand me a wowm!” and so forth and so on.

We ate lunch outside in the shade and Emil squealed with glee from his exer-saucer, just happy to watch. We left the door wide open and tracked mud inside and I didn’t care or bother to clean it up off the floor. It was nap time, then it was way past nap time and we kept on playing and working and using our bodies to make things new again. And finally, after Oliver started staggering around like an old drunk, we took the little leprechauns inside and they happily crashed (well, except for Milo) for long afternoon naps right in time for a rockin’ storm to roll in. We left the windows open for the cool breeze to blow through and the loud pounding rain nearly lulled me to sleep as well.

The day was long and wonderful, like a summer day spent in a new vacation spot. We are all different than we were last spring; healthy and more vibrant and excited and playful. And I am falling even more in love with life and my family…