Just lovely

As sometimes happens on the weekends when Nacho is home, I was searching for something fun to do outdoors yesterday. The sun was out and the weather looked good for the afternoon, so I wanted to get out and enjoy it. We're still dealing with two naps a day which means that there is a great window of time each day (usually midday) where Elisa is up and fed and rarin' to go. It's key to planning that I have most of my getting ready done while she naps and have packed up some snacks and maybe a few items (blanket, ball, bubbles) if we are going to be at a park. Yes, these are the all-consuming concerns I have now. Ah, motherhood...

Sometimes I like to question Nacho about where to go and what to do, but he is almost always too complacent and lets me decide. So I like to have a few ideas stored and ready at my disposal. If he likes one, then it makes the day that much easier. And yesterday I had an idea about an event at a local sculpture park in Astoria. So off we went in the car for a brief 5 minute drive to Socrates Park, at the edge of the East River overlooking Roosevelt Island. The park was budding with springtime blooms and petals blanketed the ground. It was a crisp, sunny day.

What I soon realized however, was that the event--a kite flying seminar and exhibition--was not on Saturday. Oops. We were there a day early but with the sun shining, the dogs running around and Elisa happy to play in the grass, we hardly cared. So after a little bit of wandering around the park, we ventured out to see where else we could go and luckily, there was another park just a few blocks south. This one had a huge mounded playground with really cool slides and Elisa's favorite bucket swings. We were set.

Later I asked Nacho to chat up the ice cream vendor and get us a treat. He chose a little snow cone with crazy blue and red coloring and that bomb pop flavor I remember so well from my own childhood. Mmmm. Elisa tried it and seemed a bit indifferent. After a few icy bites, she seemed more interested in the spoon which was fine be me. It wasn't THAT big anyway.

Afterwards I asked Nacho to snap a photo of us and didn't think it would work since Elisa seemed fidgety and ready to go play on the slide some more. But Papa worked his charms and Elisa sat and even smiled. And now I have a great memory of that fleeting day at the park. Because it all seems fleeting to me now. Twenty months down already and we are marching ever onward to two years. Years. Plural. I say that and it feels like just yesterday she was coming home with us for the first time. I think of that wonderful parenting mantra--the days are long, but the years are short. True indeed.