A Picnic? How About 2!!

A picnic. Or 2. The weekend was beautiful. Beautiful, I tell you.

Saturday morning we woke up after a short 4 hours of broken sleep and all it took was a look outside to start the day off right.

‘I want to make sure we spend some time at the park today. No really, I want to go to the park.’ You’d think this would come from the 3 year old… it came from me.

Then my amazingly wonderful and thinking the same as me friend Keri called me and said “You want to meet us at the park for a picnic?”

Yes. Could I say it again? YES.

Okay, so we get to go to the park. With one of E’s very bestest friends ever.

We spread out our blankets on the grass and the children run wild all over the play structures. Then realize we have balls… BALLS! Footballs, basket balls, soccer balls… my goodness!! And the chaos moves to the grass. And Ben and Keri’s husband play with a child size football like they themselves are children, except they are bigger and can throw the mini football across the whole grassy area, not just 2 feet in the wrong direction… well, okay, E can throw a lot better than that, but you get the idea.

Then we eat lunch. Thank goodness the children sat nicely because it only takes one kid to sit nicely for them to all sit nicely, and it only takes one kid to NOT sit nicely for them to all sit NOT nicely. But nicely they sat. Eating peanut butter sandwiches and chips and apples and drinking juice and sharing special treats after.

And then back to playing.

And Ez sat, well, laid, nicely through this all. He laid on a blanket in the grass under the shade of a tree and gazed heavenward at the branches and blue sky, and smiled, because those are the types of things that make babies smile. I liked his perspective best of all.

Only after everyone finished eating, except for me of course because I am the mom of 2 and one of those is an 8 week old baby and so naturally I start eating last and finish eating last, too, did Ez start to fuss, and then of course, because I was hoping to finish my apple before picking him up, start to cry. But it lasted for about 2 and a half minutes because he is a happy boy and does not really cry. Lucky for me.

We had to peel, literally, peel E away from the park. But that is no surprise, because we always do.

End of picnic #1.

Saturday night comes along and we are playing the BEST. GAME. EVER. with our friends next door. We have gotten our whole community into this game. If you live where we do and you have heard of, or play, the game Dutch Blitz, you can thank us. Because we got the first crew addicted to this game out here, and it has been a trickling affect. Now people say “Have you heard of Ben & Larissa? They are the Dutch Blitz masters.” Okay, people don’t actually say that. But it would be cool if they did. But, people everywhere are now addicted to this game, and we should really be getting royalty checks from the Dutch Blitz creators because we are that hard core.

We then all decide to go on a picnic the next day, too.

Sunday afternoon comes along and off we go to the park. Again. And today E is wearing a t-shirt and shorts, because it is that nice outside. In February. I have mixed feelings about that, but nevertheless it is a gorgeous day. No one can argue that.

He decides today to be brave enough to go down the 3 story ‘big kid’ slide and once he does it, he is addicted. Down the slide. Up the ladder. Down the slide. Up the ladder. I could keep typing that over and over again, but it may get a bit boring for everyone. I’m sure you get the idea.

We had to peel him away for lunch. And this time we bbq’ed hot dogs. Every child’s dream lunch. And macaroni salad, to which we sang our little song that we made up “ding a ding a doodle, ____ is a noodle!” and that way he eats twice as much as he normally would because we can only sing that AFTER a bite is taken. Everyone gets to be noodles. As of late, his 8 week old baby brother has been quite the noodle at meal time.

And back to playing. And Ben digs holes for everyone’s feet to go into. And oh no! People have to start going to the hospital because they have no more feet!? What are we going to do?! And Ez is just watching the sky again, because he can’t do much other than lay on his back, unless I carry him and then he just sleeps. So I put him in his carrier that my wonderful friend gave to me and he miraculously falls asleep instantly and we swing together. Me awake. Him asleep. And E has no feet. And everyone is happy.

And when it comes time to go, E says “But we can’t go, because I don’t have any FEET!” You really can’t get anything past that 3 year old. I mean, that’s logic at it’s best. But amazingly enough, his feet grow back and we are able to go.

And we had two of the best days of my life, back to back, all in one weekend.

And I love picnics. And I love parks. And I love being outside. And I love fresh air. And I love my guys- all 3 of them. And I love blue skies and days like today.

The End.