This past weekend was the first weekend in a long time I did not have to work. It was delightful. I already wrote about Saturday.
Sunday was Mother's Day. Another in a long line of what my wife and I think of as Hallmark Holidays. We had lunch with my parents and my grand-parents. Not the high point of my day, at the risk of sounding like a less than dutiful son. My daughter collapsed in tears in the restaurant, and I had to carry her out, upon hearing the pronouncement that there would be in dessert. She was vastly overtired. In fact, she went to sleep almost as soon as we got her home. The boy child did as well. He actually was very well behaved at the restaurant.
So what, you may wonder, did I do with the two and a half hours of free time given to me by my children? Well, I wasted a half an hour doing I know not now. The other two hours I spent in serious nap on the sofa. Ah, the bliss that is the afternoon nap. Actually, I was not feeling too well which is why I crashed out for two hours. I felt a bit loggy when I awoke. The kids were up very shortly after I was. I cooked dinner for us all, which my daughter refused to eat, preferring toasted bread and cheese, which we made for her. The boy ate his, after a fashion, meaning that half made its way into his mouth directly, a quarter was waved about in the air for a time before being eaten, and the remaining quarter went straight on the floor, much to his mother's consternation.
We finished dinner early and it was a beautiful evening. So, we loaded the boy into the baby bjorn and the girl into the stroller and off we went into the village. It's about a 10-15 minute walk into the village and it was delightful. Many of the flowering trees and bushes are budding and some are fully flowered. It smelled delicious and every where we looked there were vivid pinks and purples. However, we did not take too much time to stop and smell the flowers. No, we were on a mission. Ice cream. There is a place in our little hamlet that makes its own ice cream. Our daughter wanted strawberry and our son, my wife decided, really wanted toasted almond, although how she got that from his babbling is beyond me.
In any event, ice cream was procured, tasted, pronounced perfect, and happiness pervaded our merry little band. And to top it off, on the way back, we got to watch a bunny rabbit for a couple of minutes before he (or maybe she) decided our attention was too much and hopped away.
It was a perfect, almost Norman Rockwell, evening. I'm trying hard to fix it in my memory to keep it to refer back to when we get the anti-Norman Rockwell moments. It's hard, though, isn't it? I mean, to keep hold of the good times when you are experiencing the bad times. The bad times, somehow, seem more vivid and immediate and long lasting than the good times. Speaking of which, I am off to get some papers out today. I am working with Stinky, the partner I love the least. Wish me luck and patience.
Posted by Random Penseur at May 10, 2004 08:48 AM