I took advantage of the beautiful indian summer day and we went for a walk in the park. It’s been hard to get out recently and we haven’t been since sometime last week, I don’t even recall which day.
Bella had just woken up from a long nap (almost two hours!) but even so she was dozing again as we entered the park. I stopped the stroller in a sunny spot overlooking the beach and sat down on the grass in the warm sun.
I removed my sandals and enjoyed the grass between my toes and did a few simple yoga stretches as I watched a woman walking with a little girl on the beach below. The girl looked to be about three. She was delighting in throwing pebbles at the water and climbing on the big rocks that lay strewn across the beach. At one point she wandered into a clump of sea grass and evidently got her hands muddy. She was carefully instructed in how to brush her palms against one another to clean them.
After a while I heard Bella beginning to rustle in the stroller so I stood and lifted her out. I sat her down on the grass in front of me with one hand to steady her if she got tippy. She immediately began to grab handfuls of the grass and leaves. Funny how that seems to be a universal reaction. I always find myself plucking blades of grass anytime I sit on a nice bit of lawn.
Bella was squinting a bit so I dug her sun hat out and plopped it on her head. It fits so much better now than when I first put it on her head. Not a bit too big. And unless it’s being pushed by the stroller it no longer tends to droop into her face.
We’d been playing for a while and I’d moved her into the shade of the stroller where she was busy pushing around my water bottle and decapitating a dandelion when I noticed my friend Rose coming around the corner with her son Joseph (10 months old). I called out and they came and sat with us.
It was nice to visit with Rose, compare our babies’ new tricks, and generally catch up with each other.
When we’d been sitting there a while we saw a woman walking with a very tiny baby in her stroller. She stopped to say hi and we learned that her daughter, Sophie, is 8 weeks old. How long ago it seems that Bella was that small. I could tell this other mom was needing some reassurance and human contact. She was very chatty and we traded birth stories and talked about babies in general. It’s nice to be able to reach out to someone like that. I know I might feel quite isolated if Dom were gone all day (though being an introvert, it wouldn’t be so bad for me as it must be for those poor extroverts who crave human contact.) And how hard it can be to connect with other moms.
To my amazement Bella even fell asleep again on the way home. It must be one of those sleepy days. And when she woke she was still in a good mood. Hard to believe since it had been five hours since her breakfast!
