Airport Overlook Park

I think I've left the house three times in three-and-a-half weeks due to this illness that has affected at least one family member at all times. These four walls are closing in! Today I took us to Airport Overlook Park which was free and resulted in negligible germ exchange. We did not visit the fabulously redesigned aviation museum while there because Margaret is still contagious.

It is both windy and loud at the park.

Chris said that the photo of our children reminded him of another photo of l'il monkeys!

We ate our lunch on a bench and watched planes land and take off. It would also be fun to bring binoculars to watch the goings-on at the terminals.

Do be ready for children to get dirty at the park, as they will want to sit in dust and roll down the grassy hill about a zillion times.

Look how close we were to the planes!

I hope I earned some "cool points" with the kids! I have been feeling a bit low lately that I am not the "cool" parent: hey, who thought wanting to be popular would extend beyond high-school into one's own boring parenthood? Even though I plan so many neat activities for the children, I am also the parent interacting with them from waking till bed, I'm the one by virtue of sheer hours in the day has to discipline and correct behavior so often, I'm the one who has them do all the house chores with me, and I'm the one who is the teacher, one more not-always-fun authority figure. So when it's my turn to run an errand, no children come running begging to go with me the way they always do with Daddy. No one races to sit on my lap at the dinner table, no one leaps into my arms when I walk in from an absence because I'm same old, familiar, boring Mama. Chris encourages me that it's not a poor reflection on me, that no mama can really compete with the mystique of the father, and that the children love me very much. Still, I hope I was seen as a little more "cool" after this near outing today. It's not likely though: after having a nonstop blast of a time, a certain little girl complained to me on the car ride home, "I did not have even any fun!" . . . which I suspect is a complaint Daddy has rarely heard!

Putting Joseph in a basket of clean laundry is how I got my hands free to write this blog post: Don't worry, I would never leave him in a potentially unsafe spot like that were he any farther away than at my feet like he is right now!