Ducks, Lakes, and Brakes

So we’ve all been barely hanging on over here because we’ve had the plague. Some sort of cold/fever/achy/headache nastiness that has had at least one person down in our family for A WEEK NOW.

You know how when you are sick you don’t do the dishes, or clean, or cook, or really anything necessary to support basic life functions?

A WEEK. This is what happens to just a part of your house when you are simply trying to keep people alive for a week:

Today the boys and I were a bit better, but Joe was worse, so like the wifely angel that I am (how well you know me determines how much you laugh at that phrase) I selflessly offered to take the boys to the lake to feed the ducks. (And by selflessly I mean that I was playing up the aggravated martyr. I had to watch Lincoln for 10 MONTHS BY MYSELF when I was pregnant with Eliot and sicker than this, Joe. GET IT TOGETHER. I’m a huge joy to be around when I haven’t slept or had a break in a week.)

It took us 10 minutes of moving what seemed like everything in the house to find Lincoln shoes, 3 minutes to decide if we were taking a half package of old crackers or the stale, frozen stiff rolls in the freezer (pickings are slim around here), and 11 minutes to convince Lincoln to wear shorts.

Once in the car, it took Eliot 18 seconds to have a blowout in his diaper, and 7 seconds to realize I didn’t bring wipes.

Never mind. We pressed on.

I changed the diaper in the back of our car, using some napkins with water for wipes, felt pretty resourceful and proud of myself, and we did the long walk down to the lake.

I parked our brand new stroller a ways away from the lake, halfway up the hill, brakes locked, feeling good about that decision since otherwise Eliot would for sure push it into the lake.

(Anyone have a premonition where this is going yet?)

Then we fed the ducks, and it was a magical time. Eliot kept trying to catch the birds and fish, Lincoln spent most of his time eating the 6 month old, freezer burned bread, but it was a beautiful day and we were somewhere new for the first time in five days.

When Lincoln had eaten all the bread, he figured it was time to go home, because what else was there to do at the lake, and he headed up to the stroller while I gathered the things.

And then the people started yelling.

And I turned around to see that in fact, I had NOT locked the stroller breaks, that it was a relatively steep hill down to the water, and that my brand new running stroller was careening as fast as it could go (and that was pretty fast) down towards the lake, with my 2 year old in it, sitting straight up, screaming at the top of his lungs, with the most terrified look I’ve ever seen.

Pros: it was a running stroller so it didn’t capsize.

Cons: Everything else.

Well, naturally, I dropped the bags and Eliot, and ran fast enough to ALMOST catch the stroller before it dumped Lincoln unceremoniously into the dirtiest, marshiest corner of the lake, just deep enough to cover everything but his right eye.

I pulled him and the stroller out just in time to see that Eliot had decided to walk up the steep hill by himself. So he fell, and started rolling down the hill towards the water as well.

Luckily, one of the women who warned me about Lincoln’s situation got Eliot while I used his blanket to wipe Lincoln down as he screamed. (It really takes 2 adults to manage 2 boys. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.)

Turns out wet slug-like animals and damp leaves are both equally hard to get off a screaming toddler (especially when you are using most of your energy to NOT laugh at your poor, scared little boy). At least the park had a hose to spray off with, although I think they meant it to be used for muddy shoes and fishing equipment.

We like to think outside the box.

 

As we walked up, Lincoln’s tears subsided to occasional sniffs, and then contemplative silence. Then:

“Mama, I was a SCUBA DIVER!”

Yes, Baby. Yes, you were.