Queen of Rambles

We had our very best day of our trip today! The Amish are sort of grouchy and the food is sort of heavy and the horses are sort of scary, but Margie, Fae and Liam are PERFECT!

(Btw, Margie, I uploaded all these pics at full size on Flickr so you can just pluck them off of there.)

I’ve known Margie since before Fae was born. How many years has it been? Five? Something like that. Looking at this pictures makes my eyes sting with tears. Sure, I’m on my period, but also look at those two kids! They totally loved each other and Margie and I totally loved each other (in a platonic way) and Mike . . . who knows what he totally loved. He was in charge of the children while we chit-chatted. It was just so right that the kids walked right up to each other and started playing immediately with no trepidation or awkwardness. Kinda like Margie and I. I can’t believe they only live two hours from here! Plans are in the works for more meetings!

Mike and I lost all our Swede cred (kinda like street cred, only colder) because we were freezing our asses off. Life in balmy Maryland has spoiled us to the rigors of an artic Pennsylvania wind. I thought Margie was going to laugh her ass off when I called and told her it was too cold to go to a park. Obviously we went anyway, but only because she lives in a very religious community and there’s nothing else to do on a Sunday. We may have froze our heinies off, but the kids still managed to have fun.

There were woodchips to pile. . .

And rocks to eat!

Erik and Fae were so in love with each other that it wasn’t even funny. When we got home and we were looking at the pictures on the computer, Erik kept reaching out and trying to touch “Gurel” (rhymes with squirrel, no idea why he couldn’t remember her name is Fae). Then he saw this picture and started laughing “I eating stones, Mama!” I laughed then because I never use the word stones. I call them rocks, but Margie called them stones and was laughing because out of the whole playground of things to do, this is what the kids pick. I guess Erik must have been paying attention. Margie has a New York accent (I guess that’s what it is) that sounds almost exactly like my friend Lee Ann, so it was a little disconcerting at first.

Is this not the cutest picture ever? Fae is such a little doll! I love all the hair. It makes her look like a little wood nymph or something.

Poor Liam did not have as much fun as the rest of us. I don’t think he liked the string in his eye. He doesn’t look happy here, but he was a really good baby. He barely fussed or cried the whole time we were at the park. We went to eat at an excellent Indian buffet when we got too cold to move our arms and I got to hold him a few times! He looked at me funny and was ready to let loose with a monster wail, but I quickly turned him away from me so he couldn’t see who was holding him and that did the trick. I’m sorta like Medusa that way, I guess. Instead of turning people to stone, I make babies cry.

Of course, we had to have the obligatory picture of us together. I even wore make-up for the occassion since my period gives me pizza face. I may be 34, but my pimple face makes me look 12. Or like a drug addict. Either way.

One last picture, then I’ll stop! I promise.

Is that not a classic? Fae looks like she is about to commit some act of mischief and Erik is busy stuffing his face. Margie probably thinks I’m a terrible mom because we were letting him run around a little more than we normally would, but he needed to stretch his legs and we were in the back where we weren’t bothering anyone (mostly). I say mostly because right before we left a group of women with a little girl about Fae’s age came in and sat in front of us. They made some really snide comments to each other about our kids being out of their seats. I wanted to go over and smack the shit out of them. You know what they did to their little girl? Had her sitting at the table with a DVD player and headphones. I’ll take nice, normal, active little kids over kids plugged into a DVD player any day. My kid watches enough TV. He can socialize with his family during meal times. And our kids weren’t even being bad! They were just being kids and most everyone was smiling at them. They were having so much fun together that it was impossible to put a damper on that. Erik is often times bullied by bigger kids because he’s so small, but Fae was totally sweet with him and he responded by being her little follower for the day. Why can’t Margie live down here and be social with me?

Many more pictures up at Flickr.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.