TBnJ

Yes, I'm a little behind in my posts. Some of them may never get done.

On Mother's Day morning, it was absolutely gorgeous out. The internet said it was 70 out there, but with the cool breeze that was blowing, it felt much cooler despite the sunny skies. All of us put on long pants and grabbed long sleeved jackets as we headed up to the park at 8:30 in the morning. We eventually were able to shed the jackets as it warmed up.

We were the first ones up at the park, and it was gorgeous up there. We took along Red Dog who felt that it was cruel to keep him on a leash sitting there watching the kids play. He wanted to be doing something more interesting like hunting for crawfish in the creek or looking for other animals to play with. But since he has beagle blood and is not trained to be off-leash, he was stuck with us, barking loudly and unhappily.

J wanted to fly a kite, so she brought up her butterfly kite. She has gotten very good at flying it and only needs occasional help from Daddy-o. T went running off to climb a tree by the playground, and B took his bucket and shovel to go dig in the rocks by the playground. Eventually they tired of these activities, so we headed over to the sandbox (which Grandpa keeps insisting is a volleyball court).

Over at the sandbox, T began digging for China. He found the plastic liner at the bottom of the sand pit about 8" down. He made a pretty significant hole that was about 18"x24"x8". J and B worked on building a sandcastle complete with moat. Daddy-o found the little alien dude laying on the ground nearby which greatly amused T.

As we sat in the gorgeous weather, Daddy-o and I talked about how much Blue Dog would have loved to have been there. It was the kind of weather he adored, and in his geriatric years, he was quite happy to sit and watch the kids play and enjoy a good sunbeam. Red Dog, however, was not happy with that arrangement and so Daddy-o had to keep taking him on short expeditions to keep him happy.

At one point, B asked me, "When are we going to train Red Dog?" Red Dog is coming up on an estimated 12 years of age, so puppy school isn't exactly on our list of things to do with him. I asked B what we were going to train Red Dog to do, and he replied, "Be like Blue Dog." I have no idea what specifically that meant. Perhaps he was referring to Blue Dog's willingness to be patient and quiet at the park, but I'm not sure.

While I was having this conversation with B, T sort of overheard us from the other side of the sandbox and asked, "Are we going to trade J?" I explained to him we were discussing TRAINing not TRADing, and no, we weren't getting rid of his sister.

T and Grandpa played toss with a tennis ball for quite a while, and then they switched to playing "Monkey in the Middle" with J. This basically boils down to "keep away." J and T were usually in the middle, though Grandpa ended up in the middle once or twice. That was pretty futile since Grandpa's catching skills are far greater than T and J's throwing.

Overall, it was a really lovely morning out. I ran out of energy after two hours and came home, but the kids stayed out for another hour longer.

More photos of Mother's Day start here in the Flickr stream.

Labels: in Austin, kid sayings