Saturday, September 13, 2008

A Morning with Max

Yesterday morning I was not only lucky enough to find Sunflower Farmer's Market, but I got to spend the whole morning with Max. It was one of those extremely rare occasions when Jack had preschool but Max's school had a teacher prep day, so he was free. I asked him what he wanted to do, just the two of us, and he decided on "The Wood Park". If you haven't already been, the park is in Pleasant Grove, and is the coolest park I've ever been to. It is set up like some kind of fort and is completely made of wood (hence the name). Here's some shots:

This section of the playground is built to look like a volcano,
complete with a diagram inside showing how volcanoes work.

Rocket with blast off astronaut seats and a periscope.

A wide shot of the fort part of the park.

I know, I know, I have fully become a Mom when I'm raving about parks on a blog. So be it. This place is really amazing and full of nooks and crannies for the kids to play. Trish told me that there are rats living in the playground and people have been bitten, but I can't stop going. If I was a rat I would want to live there, so I totally get it (and I've never seen one).
It was just one of those amazing fall mornings that was sunny and cool and Max and I were the only people there for most of our visit. All he wanted me to do was follow him everywhere, which I did, and you could just see him soaking in all the attention that is usually split between him, Jack, Steve, a million household chores and errands, and the many other things I chose to spend my time on. It made me think of how great it was when he and I got to spend all day every day together when he was first born all the way up to when we had Jack 2 years and 4 months later. Those were great days, and like most things parenting related, I didn't appreciate them as much as I should of at the time. But I'm learning, I think. I feel really lucky that I have the chance to be a full time Mom, although I freely admit it would be much easier for me to have a job away from home.
I think I fully realized how lucky I was when Max was a newborn and we were living in the Avenues. Steve was gone a lot because of his commute to work and just work in general, so I had to find ways to entertain Max and myself all day. I used to walk up to the Smith's on 6th Avenue a lot to buy groceries for dinner (and really just to get out of the house) with Max in the Baby Bjorn, and one of the days I was walking home and it started raining. Max was looking up in the sky with absolute amazement (I guess everything is pretty amazing to a 6 month old), and I realized that this was the first time he had ever been in a rainstorm or felt raindrops on his face. And I got to be there for it. Now tell me, what job could compare with that?

Here's a few more pictures:




Max on the monkey bars. One of my favorite memories of him is last summer when I took him to the park and he wanted to do these and he couldn't. I was so impressed with him because instead of crying or getting mad (like I would have done at his age), he just got back up and kept trying them over and over and over again until he could do it. Now he's a pro. I love his determination, but don't appreciate it as much when he's trying to argue with me on how to pronounce words (or just about anything else for that matter).

Max and I kicking it on the tire swing. I'm so lucky to be his Mom.

We finished our morning together with a bagel from Einstein's. A chocolate chip bagel with blueberry cream cheese and chocolate milk: a lunch only a five year old could love.

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