Going to the Park with Daniel

Last night I was telling Darin about my evening at the park and he told me I had to post my experience.

To preface, I have to start off by explaining why we went to the park. I had found a killer deal on dress up clothes on Craigslist so drove 45 minutes to Mesa to pick them up. Rylie screamed the entire trip up to Mesa, so I realized that I had to take the kids to the park and just let them play.

I got us some food and went to a park nearby. I hadn't even completely gotten everything out of the car when I looked up to find Daniel soaked (he had found a water spout and had put it to full use). This of course meant that he was covered with wet sand for the remainder of the evening. My philosophy is if they have already done it, why stress, let him enjoy it and we will clean up later. I got some very interesting looks from other parents, but he was happy.

So finally when we decided to leave, I returned Daniel to the water spout to clean him off, when Rylie started trying to play in the water puddle down below. So, I picked her up and moved her to the grass. Within seconds she was back to the puddle. So again, I picked her up and moved her to the grass. At this point she caught on that I would move her so instead of going to the water puddle, she decided to book it to the road. Daniel at this point was now naked, with me trying to get all of the sand off of him-- so I left him just standing there and dashed after Rylie. This was repeated 3 more times before I could get Daniel cleaned, diaper on and a new shirt on.

Upon getting into the car, I got them all buckled up, ready to go, when Daniel showed me that his sippy cup was empty. This shouldn't be a big deal, but I have had a number of times in the car where he became completely obsessed about needing water and screamed the entire way home. I made a made rush to the water fountain nearby with the sweat sounds of Rylie screaming behind me since I left them.

I can't tell you how relieved I was when we finally got all settled and were on our way home. Oh, the joy of taking kids to the park!