Not even rain or a pocket full of used diaper could ruin this day.

Church clothes always look better with baseball caps & binoculars.

Yesterday we had a lovely summer Sunday.  It began with breakfast burritos and continued to include church, naps, yoga, biking, dinner together (with no one yelling, hitting, or being timed out), and concluded with a stroll on the green-way near our neighborhood, where there were oodles of wild blackberries ripening beside the path.  Below I'd like to document some of my favorite moments of this day.

First, we let the children dress themselves for church.  John chose a striped polo and shorts with winterized fuzzy Crocs.  Sam chose this number:  a button-up with western-style front pockets, shorts, sandals, a backwards baseball hat, and binoculars.  I thought he would be the talk of the two-year old room.  But even the intricacies of dressing children seems to follow that age-old adage that there is always a worse situation than your own.   Standing just in front of the door was a small male child who had apparently spent some time in the "dramatic play" area and had accessorized his church clothes with a tiara and tutu. 

After church, Brian and John took a long bike ride so that Sam could nap and mama could do yoga.  After that we had a big traditional Sunday dinner complete with catfish, butterbeans, cornbread, and spaghetti.  After the meal, we were stuffed, so we decided an evening stroll might help the digestive process.  

The boys wanted to scooter, so we went down to the path instead of walking on the street.  Sam is very proud of his newly-gained ability to use the Big Boy Spiderman Scooter, which has only TWO wheels.  He is so good at it that we trashed the three-wheel baby scooter.

Here we are being SO happy that I bet you can't even tell which one of us has a used diaper in his/her pocket.

At some point during the walk, Sam hopped off his scooter, obviously in pain, and turned around and very clearly said, "My penis huuuuuurrrrtttsss!"  Yes, I teach them the correct names for body parts.  The solution to this problem was to remove his diaper on the green-way.  However, this meant that I was given the fun motherly task of having to carry it for half a mile before we found a garbage can.  The fun thing about boys, however, is that even things which you think are negative can be turned around by creating some sort of throwing game.  So even once we found a trash can, we didn't immediately dump the diaper.  Of course we played keep away, catch, and trashbasketball with it.

John tossing the diaper into the can (see the white blurry thing between him and the can?)

Yes, neither diaper hauling nor even rain could ruin the evening.  In addition to being grossed out by carrying  around used diapers, I also, in a past life, would've seen rain as a preventive to outdoor fun, but now it's only icing on the cake.  Rain, for boys, is novel and cooling, and best of all, it creates enormous mud puddles in which to splash or lie down, as one sees fit. 

Lord, let me remember this day when, very soon, I find myself writhing in the self-pity of a two-day work week during summer vacation.  Let me see my time with them as a the fun pre-cursor to the real challenge of parenthood, which hasn't even graced our doorstep yet: teenagerhood.  Help me to remember that we are so, so lucky to have these loud, energetic, hungry, curious creatures hanging around.  Even if sometimes I have to imagine the opposite type of child to make myself feel better (quiet, lethargic, no-appetite, bored), let me revel in their littleness for now.

Loud, Energetic, Hungry, Curious Creatures