Stormy Play

Winter's here -- dark, cold, windy, and wet. When there's a break in the weather, it's good to get outside. This was especially true over school break.

Here's where we went the day before school started - the park near our house:

Looks balmy and inviting, eh? We were desperate.

Actually, the kids had a ball. We swung on the swings and played with just about every piece of equipment there:

"Wa-hoooooo! I flying!"

Funny voices galore.

Right back at ya!

Heh. Those pants fit him this time last year ...

We had an absolutely fantastic time for half an hour. Then, as I was trying to round them up to go back home, James ran off, slipped, and slid on his backside through the mud. He then ran further off, wailing, to a bench, leaving his shoes stuck in the mud.

I trecked after him, picking my way through the swamp to retrieve his shoes. As I was calming him down, and getting his dripping socks off, two well-meaning people stopped by to "help" James stop crying. Their friendly dog on a leash just made things worse. This is when "Why me?" starts flashing in the back of my brain.

The good news is that I have a lot of situations like this under my belt so I just kind of breathed extra deep, smiled, and thanked the people for their concern and returned focus to James, coaxing him out of his socks, into the Crocks, and over to our car.

The bad news is that as we stopped to pick up his sister, she fell backwards off a ridiculously low (as in about 10 inches) step, whack her head and loosening a tooth (thankfully a baby one).

So it goes. We had baths and showers and dinner. By bed time, all was well again.

As for me, I need a park pick-me-up. Here is is, courtesy of Charlie and Humphrey -- two of my favourite pals from Pat McCormick, KTVU, and my days growing up in the Bay Area ...