Limited Time

Over the past ten years, literally hundreds of older mothers have stopped to tell me some variation of,  "Enjoy every moment with your children. It will end before you know it."As each day passes, I come to a better understanding of what these wise women want me to know.  Because three of my children are now at school for the full day, I know how precious, and limited, my uninterrupted days at home with Sophia and Ezra are. So, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days when Sophia does not have preschool, I have committed myself to outings and fun time with my little ones. On these mornings, I walk past the sink full of dishes that should be done, pull the laundry door closed on the piles of folding that I could work on and try to forget the playroom that needs tidying. My children will have plenty of memories of me scrubbing the bathrooms, loading the dishwasher and mopping the floor, but I also hope that they remember going to the beach with their mother, picking apples and blueberries together and wandering around the museums with me.

Once school resumed, my first outing with Sophia and Ezra was to the Boston Children's Museum. We slipped into the production of The Three Little Pigs just in time for the producers to ask for a volunteer. Of course Sophia's hand shot right up and she was chosen to be the little pig who built her house out of sticks.  (No other children volunteered so her two brothers where left to the imagination of the audience.) Sophia's acting debut was a success! We spent the rest of the morning playing with trucks, the boats and the ducks, climbing up the twisted maze-like tunnel that extends two stories high, and creating clay figures in the art room. We then ate lunch on the water front before heading home. 

The Big Bugs came to Sudbury and so Ezra, Sophia and I sought out to find them. We picked up a magnifying glass, binoculars, and a map and began our exploration of Garden in the Woods. Sophia loved spotting the gigantic creatures, as well as the tiny frogs and turtles in the ponds. Sophia was proud of her own bug that she made out of sticks, rocks and a tree stump.

One Tuesday morning my agenda of heading to the zoo began to fall apart, so I asked Sophia what she wanted to do. Her request was a morning at the park, just a few blocks from our house. I wasn't excited about spending one of our precious outing days so close to home, but to the park we went. To our surprise, three friends of Sophia's from last year's preschool class were on the play structure. Sophia had been missing her old friends, so the park turned out to be the perfect place to be. We swung, dug, climbed and slid all morning. Afterwards we headed to Friendly's for a clown sundae.

 

 

Another Tuesday morning we packed a lunch and headed to Wier Woods for a "hike". Sophia pretended to be Little Red Riding Hood, and all through the woods, she called me grandmother in an English accent and requested that I refer to her as Little Red Riding Hood in my best accent. Ezra was the wolf. She hung her hooded sweatshirt off her head, as a cloak and carried her imaginary basket and walking stick. The next day at preschool she announced as she walked in, that her name was not Sophia, but rather Little Red Riding Hood. She insisted that her teachers call her Little Red Riding Hood all day, which they did.

 

This past week we headed to Westborough to Harvey's Farm. We bought a brown sack of sunflower seeds so that Sophia and Ezra could feed the goats, ducks and chickens. Ezra shrieked in delight each time he tossed a handful in the pond and the ducks raced at a chance for one little seed. But he wasn't so pleased when the goat jumped up on the gate to share in the goods. This time he shrieked in fear. Sophia had fun helping me choose twisted goards for a basket in our family room. At a dollar a piece, she looked for the bumpiest, most crooked and colorful of nature's creations until her heart was content. We then slipped in the farm store where I found a witch and ghost for Emilie, Jonathan and Annelise to hang on our front porch. (After envying the neighbor's spooky decorations each day on the way home from the bus, they decided that we needed to join in on some Halloween spirit.) Sophia left with a small bag of candy and Ezra sucked on an old fashioned candy stick. We were all content with our purchases.       

 

Last week Steve was in Boston all week for training. On Tuesday, after stopping at a park with some friends in Wellesley, Sophia, Ezra and I met Steve at Faneuil Hall. We ate lunch together in Qunicy Market and then watched the street performers while we munched on cookies. The weather was perfect, the food great and the company couldn't have been better.