The first Saturday in more than a month that hasn’t been taken up with house hunting!!!
Today has been a golden October day. The sort you often get here in the fall when the skies are clear and blue, the sun is warm but not hot, the wind is crisp, the trees are blazing gold and red and orange, the leaves crunch satisfyingly underfoot and all seems right with the world.
I took the girls to Lynch park in Beverly. I’ve only been there once before, for a former roommate’s wedding. A lovely park right on the water with a formal rose garden (that’s where the wedding took place). Also a nice playground for the kids, two beaches, and some soccer fields where many small tykes were playing ball as we pulled into the parking lot.
The autumn is the best time for many of these Massachusetts coastal parks. In the summer you have to pay for parking but after Labor Day parking is free. So this is by far the best time to go exploring and find new spots of interest. Sadly, we’ll soon be too far away to take advantage of my new discoveries. There will be many new opportunities to explore the South Shore, however. I do hope it isn’t too far from our new home to some nice ocean-side parks.
Bella loved it. There were seagulls in the water, dirt and rocks to play with, slides to conquer, children to watch, and flowers to ooh at. She’s picked up a funny habit of saying, “Go away, butterfly,” from her favorite Beatrix Potter book, The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse. I tried to do some extra ooohing about the beautiful butterflies to counteract that unfortunate tendency. What will people think when they hear my toddler sending the butterflies packing?
Sophia had a little accident—actually a major accident that got all over my hand and sleeve before I realized it had happened. So she had to be stripped naked on the park bench (she almost lunged off before I realized the sun was in her eyes) and wiped clean with about two dozen wipes. Luckily the diaper bag was well stocked for once with plenty of wipes, two plastic bags, one for the offending diaper and one for her clothes and my over shirt (so glad I was wearing an over shirt that could be removed.) And, best of all, a complete change of clothes for lucky Phia who didn’t have to be bundled into something too big or too small but had a lovely little outfit with the most adorable print collar with bows and ribbons and little warm footies. It was actually much more appropriate than the dress and pants I’d originally had her in. She had kicked off her socks before we even got out of the house and I didn’t bother to put them back on her poor little bare feet.
I wasn’t quite so prepared in the matter of food. There was a bag of Cheerios and a very, very, very squashed Nutri-Grain bar and a bag of very crumbly oyster crackers. I should have brought a picnic. We had to return home for lunch.
Sophia, who was riding in the front seat of the stroller for the first time, fell asleep leaning onto the side bar of the stroller, clasping my water bottle and I so wished I’d remembered to bring the camera to take some pictures for Dom. But memory can capture a day like this and store it up for those bleak February days when the house seems to close in on you and all is cold and drear.
