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Friday, June 4, 2010

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(How it was supposed to look....)


So, Rey is gone on a day-long trip to one of the communities.

It's ok. It happens about twice a week. I am getting the hang of juggling the kids schedules, housework and cooking in a relatively peaceful manner.

Today, I decided to be "Miss (or perhaps, "Mrs." to you) Adventurous" and take the kiddos to the park. Rey had left the van, so it suddenly became a much more viable option. (Thinking I had to walk, I was trying to decide if I'd put Aleni in the front pack and Noah in the stroller until we got to the park... or put Aleni in the stroller and let Noah walk too???)

As we left, I shut Canela in the house and trucked the babes down the 3 flights of stairs and got them loaded into the van. At this point, Canela is howling her head off. I mean, really howling. Thinking it would probably get old for our downstairs neighbors, I decided to take her, too.

I now graduated from Miss Adventurous to Miss Super Duper Adventurous. Grabbed Canela's leash and ran her down the 3 flights of stairs, loaded her into the back of the van and off we went.

Sooo... the park has 2 entrances. The main one, which is really busy and has no shade, or the back entrance which is quieter and very shady. We went to the back entrance. The only bad part about the back entrance, is the 20 feet leading up to it is paved in about 2 inches of sand and littered with several big rocks. Have you ever tried pushing a stroller through 2 inches of sand?

I got Noah out. Got the stoller out. Pulled the dog out from under the seat and tied her leash to the stroller. Put Aleni in the stroller. And we were off! A picture of serenity, Noah helping me push the stroller. There is a crowd of about 20 park-cleaner-upper people standing/lounging around in the shade outside the park entrance. They boredly watch the "got-it-together-gringa-mama" do the seemingly impossible....

I notice that the sand is seeming reeeeeaaalllllyyy hard to push through today, and look down to see Canela is pulling backwards on her leash as hard as she can. All of the skin off her neck has piled up into rolls over her eyes and she is doing her utmost to stop the procession. Ahh, great. Forgot the dog is anti-social. Well, ni modo, gotta get in that park.

I keep pushing, she keeps pulling and progress in slow. Then, one person notices, "Ehhh! Mira el perrito!!" one shouts. "It's a perritAAAA" I think huffily to myself. The whole group starts gesturing and giggling. "Ha ha!! Look at it! You don't have it trained, huh?? Ha ha." I smile feebly and keep desperately pushing. Everyone keeps laughing and shouting out observations and advice.

I end up picking up Canela and putting her in the stroller basket, since she was just being dragged along. To increase the comic element, Canela jumped right out and the crowd roared. I should have charged for this great entertainment.

A lady came up behind us with her rake and tried to encourage Canela along. "Come on, little dog. Walk!"

But, she didn't, until we got through the entrance and she couldn't see the people anywhere. Then she trotted alongside, just as "trained" as could be.

Sigh.

At least the park staff will have something to talk about over lunch today.

2 comments:

  1. Ha! Way to go, mama! Thanks for the smile. :)

    And I see that we like the same kind of blogs... I regularly read YHL and Bower Power, and sometimes Newly Woodwards.

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  2. hey! it was totally you that introduced me to those blogs... you had that link in your project post... and I checked it out. I started spending so long checking them out that I put them on my blogroll so I could actually get off the computer! ;) So interesting!

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