Simple pleasures: a walk

This morning was yet another dark, rainy morning. But it's Friday so I couldn't resist having a little bounce to my step. The kids have been sick and cooped up for almost 2 weeks now (other than a very fun trip out to visit Babcia and Dziadek and Dominika and Konrad on Wednesday). This morning I decided to give them a nice blast of fresh air, so I got their boots and told them we were going to go out on the balcony to see what it was like outside. They already new it was raining but Lily was quickly able to add "cloudy" and "windy" to the weather report. I think it will be fun to go out on the balcony each morning with them and see how many different words we can use to describe the weather.

Then we made a big mess with some paint, played with trucks, had breakfast...

At noon I noticed that the rain had stopped. I could not believe my eyes. And was that... sunshine? I don't think I've ever gotten them ready for a walk so fast! And we had an agenda, too: we were walking to the "veggie store" to get some bananas so we could come home and make strawberry banana snow (a smoothie, basically).

This was the second time I've taken Lukasz out to run some errands without the stroller. Usually he's stuck sitting in the stroller because, well, Lily sticks with me and he has a tendency to go wherever he pleases. But he's almost 2 years old now and I thought it was high time for him to learn about holding hands and watching for cars. So we set out and at first he didn't want to walk. He wanted to be carried. I thought "well, this was a short trip". No way could I carry him to the veggie store and back, even though it's only a block away. But then a fire truck went roaring by, and then a garbage truck rumbled past, and wow was that ever enough to distract him! He forgot about wanting up and we all walked together to the veggie store. We picked out some bananas (and learned that the people who own the store will be retiring at the end of the month. Very sad news for me; I've been going to that store since Lily was in the Snugli, and have gotten to know them a little bit).

We took a longer way home, and Lukasz was great until we were just about there. Then he wanted me to carry him. I carried him 10 steps and he wanted down. It was definitely nap time. But we made it home, got our boots and coats off, washed our hands, and after I blended the strawberries, they took turns adding pieces of banana to the mix. Then they stood and held their ears while I mixed it all together. Then they ate it up and now are both having a nap. I know Lily is only napping now because she is sick, but I'm still giving myself a pat on the back for having such a smoothly-run early afternoon.

I love that I can take them on little errands like " let's go get bananas", and they are happy to help pick them out and Lily helped carry them home, and then when she could see the windows of our apartment she pointed out that we were almost home. It's such a simple task, but we all enjoyed it very much. Especially the strawberry banana snow at the end. :o)