Thursday. Three days on my own with the kids and I’m nearly finished with my list of projects designed to keep me occupied until December. In light of my current Too Much Time To Fill state, I developed a plan B: field trips.
Tonight I decided to take the kids to a local farmer’s market. How hard could it be? Three kids, one stroller, a few tents. Cake.
More like Cake Fight, actually.
We parked alongside the road and unloaded the burdens into the stroller. Have you ever tried to push a stroller through sage brush? A double wide stroller? Yeah. Not made for sage brush. We nearly lost Harrison a.k.a. Indiana Jones on the way to the gravel road where the tents were set up (he was hiding from the bad guys). Did you catch the gravel part? Ever tried to push a double stroller through gravel?
Aside from the 60 pounds of childhood flesh and the gravel, it was a nice night. Saw a few cute booths, sampled some great tomatoes, all in all that first four minutes went really well. Then Rex wanted out of the stroller. Why not? He’s being so good. Lies, all lies. Oh how quickly the storm clouds billowed in.
I decided to be the nice fun mom my own mother and Jason would never approve of and get the kids each a little souvenir. Junie got a new bracelet because at nine months (today) she just loves jewelry, and Rex picked out a hideous stuffed dragon at some cheap-o stand. Harry? He wanted his face painted. Sure!
As soon as Harrison sat down Rex started messing with the paints. As soon as I told him no he started to melt down. Picture a banana popsicle in the middle of the asphalt on a hot August day. That’s about how fast Rexy unraveled. As soon as Harrison was finished (Tiger Harrison, he informed me) Rex wanted to be a mouse. A yellow mouse. Since Rex and his loud little voice (yes, it carries just like mine) were about ten notches above adamant, I decided to practice survival parenting and gave in.
She only managed a pink nose and whiskers before he really lost it. “I want to be a frog!” Weeping, wailing, throwing the dragon. We were like a tiger/mouse/dragon circus with a miniature fat lady perched in the stroller chewing on her bracelet.
Somehow we made it through the sagebrush wilderness and back to the car, despite our mouse’s smudged whiskers and the tiger that stalked us through the bush. The June Bug? Perfect. Never made a single peep. Hey, we put on a good show, who wouldn’t be entertained?
I think our next outing will be a little closer to home. Like the backyard. I think we could handle that.