Growing up

I was raised different than many people I know. I was primarily raised by my mother who has had MS all of my life. My mom NEVER gives herself enough credit for the lessons she instilled in Shannon and I. I didn't know it at the time, but she taught me to care for others and to try to be patient with them - among many other lessons.

Now that I'm a mother, I try to live my life in the here and now. I don't want to wake up one day with a disease and regret that i didn't play outside with my kids as much - or something of the sort. What I'm saying is that even if a I have a load of house work that needs to be done, I'll still choose playing outside with the kids over doing what probably needs to be done more. Get what I'm saying?

I've been trying to get Nathan to practice writing his name before he heads back to school. He's not interested in that in the least. I told him yesterday that if he practiced writing his name then I'd take him and Claire to the park. Funny how such a bribe would work. He had his name on his paper so fast it would have made your head spin.

We couldn't decide what park to go to, so we drove around looking at prospects. We stopped at a park that Nathan thought looked fun. We got out and played for a bit. Natey went down the slide a couple of times and took a spin on the mary-go-round. I told him that I was taking Peach over for a ride on the swing. Natey's never been a big swing guy, but he thought he'd join us. We got over there and it wasn't long before he noticed these odd bugs that were digging in the sand. I enjoyed watching them myself, but he was COMPLETELY freaked out. It wasn't long until it was time to move on to another park.

We drove around from park to park and nothing suited Natey's fancy. Then I thought maybe we'd go out to the State Park to see if the playground out there looked like fun. We got there and Peach was getting cranky so I knew it probably wasn't going to last long. We got out of the van and walked up to the park. I noticed a butterfly on the slide. I was very excited! I love butterflies and from what I knew, Natey did too. We see the white ones in our yard all the time and he loves to chase them! So I pointed out this butterfly and Nathan about freaked. He wanted me to make it move. I asked him what the deal was and he said he just didn't want it on the slide. So I motioned my hand near it and off it flew. Nathan was very leary to start playing on the equipment. He finally did but was quickly derailed by a cobweb. It wasn't much longer (seconds) before he screamed because he saw the butterfly again. I pointed to the tire swing and said "No Nathan. The butterfly is over there." He looked over at the swing and said "Well there are two because that one is up here." I didn't point out that there were actually 3 on the tire swing. I asked what the deal was with the butterflies and he said that he likes the small white ones but he does NOT like the big ones. We were at the State Park for less than 15 minutes - and that's counting how long it takes to drive through the thing. (sigh)

My point? I should have just stayed home and chose dishes or something! :)