One of the things I love about O´s preschool is the fact that twice a week the kids spend the entire school day in the park. One of the things I hate about it is the fact that twice a week I have to clean up O after he's spent the entire school day at the park. Our afternoon usually goes something like this:
1.30 Pick O up from the playground and feel guilty because I meant to get there earlier so that S can have time to play. Instead I just look mean for not letting my son out of his stroller at the freaking playground.
1.45 After spending several minutes convincing O to follow me out the gate we begin our trek home.
1.45-2.15 A ten minute walk stroll into a half hour session of wills being slowly broken. Some days it's O's will, some days it's mine. It usually involves several pleas to walk faster and lots of hanging on the stroller because, "Is it hard to walk?" His words, not mine. O spends the entire time trying to convince me that he doesn't need a bath and that just his pants are dirty despite the visible dirt streaks on his cheeks and the mud cakes under his nails. I spend the entire walk reassuring him that we will walk in the door and hop in the bath.
2.15-3.00 Walk in the door and realize that J just can't wait to be fed and so for some reason I expect that the directions I yell to my three year old while having my three month old latched onto me will be followed. Why do I ever tell O to get undressed and get in the bath? He doesn't know how to do that any more than I know how to literally roll around in the dirt and not be bothered by it making its way into every last crevice it can find.
3.00-4.30 Beg and plead and sometimes achieve success in my attempts to get two boys bathed, serve and clean up lunch for three boys, and get three boys down for a nap.
Today was pretty much the same as every other playground day except for the fact that O couldn't get one of his boots off. I offered him a hand and when his foot finally made its exit from the boot, so did this pile of dirt. I love park days.
2 comments:
School at the park sounds awesome. I remember when Elliot was that age trying to pick up Noah from school and Elliot just sitting down on the sidewalk and refusing to continue. We have a ridiculously short walk, but there were still many motivational speeches and the occasional slinging a crying child over my shoulder so we wouldn't be late for pick up. Once he got on the running bike, we had a lot less trouble. I don't know about your little boys, but mine are sometimes so emotional that they remind me of teenage girls.
I was going to respond to your comment a while ago but couldn't because one of my boys was throwing a fit about trucks not being properly lined up or something, so yes, my boys can be a bit emotional. Rain Man was on television the other night and I actually had to stop watching because it reminded me a bit too much of O. My favorite part about lugging screaming child over my shoulder here is that old men will get in said child's face as well as mine and either shush him loudly or make seriously scary faces. Or yell at me. Thanks for the support.
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