Yesterday was a hard day for me, but as I so often say, my people are SOLID people, and I didn’t have to be alone at all. My mom came and spent the morning, as we had previously planned, so I could take Rowan to his first day of preschool, just the two of us. (Thank you for all the love on that post, friends. It was a really cute milestone day.) We ran a quick errand together with Solly and Waverly, and then I went to pick Ro back up. We finished out the morning while the kids ate lunch, and then Cher joined us with a bunch of leftover pizza for our own lunch!
The three of us ate lunch once the kids were down, and visited a little before my mom had to head on her way. She was away last weekend and had some catching up to do 🙂 Cher hung out for the afternoon and through the kids coming home from school. Now I’ve said before, that stretch between school getting out, and supper, is the hardest stretch around here. Not the hour before bedtime. The hour(ish) between school and supper. SO difficult. So on a day where I already wasn’t feeling very strong, I was in quite a bit of dread pertaining to that stretch of time. Not to mention, Brady’s day had become a huge mess and he was feeling SO unproductive. He had a goal to finish by the end of the day and it just was not going to happen by his usual cutoff time. So as I said. Dread. Bad attitudes. All me.
I decided to give them a supper I know they love. A supper that is a total mom fail, but actually isn’t, because its a HUGE kid win. Peanut butter and jam sandwiches. With veggies and a couple of other things, but, pb&j was the star. I had decided to start supper at 4:30, and as you can imagine, got them settled and eating significantly earlier than necessary. Supper was over shortly after 5:00, and I realized we had a FULL two hours of time to nip at each other and get on each other’s nerves.
So Cher lent a hand and helped me get everyone shoed, water bottled, and out the door. We spent the rest of their evening at the playground. And guys, it was just so awesome. They were SO happy.
Very shortly after we got there, Brady made it home. He got my text that we were at the playground and made his way over to join us.
It was such a peaceful evening. The kids played happily. There was no fighting. They even made friends with a little girl who was there with her parents. They mentioned that she was their only child, and when she saw all of our kids on the playground, she had run towards them, saying “My friends!” Our kids took her in immediately, which just thrilled my heart. They would run up the slides, and she couldn’t quite keep up. At one point, Dekker hooked his foot on some bars at the top of the slide, and hung his body down, his arm outstretched, and he encouraged her to keep coming, that he’d help her! I could’ve cried. He was SO sweet. In the end, she did make it up to him and grab his hand, but his foot slipped and they both rode down the slide, haha! No one got hurt or squished, he was in total control 🙂 A big smile plastered on his face the entire time. I love seeing that side of him. He is SO good with kids.
My favourite was when the kids hit the saucer swings. They went a couple of times, but the best one was when Rowan and the new little girl wanted to ride together, and Dekker was going to swing it for them. Dekker LOVES the saucer swings, and can make them go super high. I kind of started to suggest he be a bit more careful because of our new friend, and he nodded right away and said he knew, and he would. And he did! He rocked the swing, and Rowan and the little girl were full of smiles. He had his arm around her, holding onto the edge and keeping her steady. Hair was everywhere, blowing like crazy in the wind. He was trying to brush it from his face, and then reached over and tried to get her hair out of her eyes, too. Man, it was SO cute!
I could tell at one point, the little girls parents were going over to collect her. It was right when I called to the kids that they had ten more minutes to play before we were going to go. The little family looked at each other and it seemed they decided to stay a little longer 😉 So they ran from the swings to the play structure and back again. They ran the merry go round in circles and slid and slid and slid. It was just so awesome to see everyone so happy.
When the time came, so did the beginnings of some rain, so we made our way home. The kids happily played all the way home, as though everything were completely normal with the world.
And I admit, I was puffed with pride. I am SO grateful for my children, being exactly who they are! Thank you, Lord, for training my kids to be so loving and accepting and approachable! All glory to God!