i'm seriously glad i didn't take my D200 today... i was torn over whether i should bring it for more control and better photos, or the small point & shoot for convenience. today, convenience prevailed and i am just insanely relived. the photos might not be as good as they could have been, but if i had to lug that thing around, i probably wouldn't have bothered trying to take any! the plan was for asher to ride in the stroller and iris to walk... usually asher is in the sling, but because i wanted to get photos with the kids, i thought it would be too much trouble to get him in and out all the time. but, of course i should have known better... the only times (i can think of twice. only two times) asher has ridden in the stroller, he hated it. it's like really blatant foreshadowing in a crappy novel.
so we get there and asher was content from the parking lot into the entryway where my glasses promptly fogged over. so we took a moment to pause, remove our coats, and clean off my glasses. that was about all of the stroller asher cared to tolerate.
so, out of the stroller he came and i realized that my backup sling that i usually keep in the diaper bag was not with me. so i got to be that frazzled looking mom with her arms loaded down with child, pushing an empty stroller. (but really, i wasn't frazzled... i just had an extraneous stroller. i hate pushing an empty stroller.)
so we meandered about the place. it was fairly crowded... not packed, but just enough to make maneuvering a challenge. iris enjoyed smelling the flowers
and blazing the trail through the different gardens
but she mostly loved the waterfall
and digging in the sand display.
(i thought at first that this giant bowl full of sand looked like a big huge ashtray... it had what looked to be trash in it. i wasn't sure if she should be playing in it. then i noticed a big sign saying something about how this is what the earth would look like with no plants. and kids were supposed to build mountains in the sand and name them with flags made out of popsicle sticks and post it notes (which is what i assumed to be garbage). anyway, iris loved it... but as a display, i thought it could have used a bit of work...)
but anyway... this proved to be a recipe for disaster: the rushing roar of the waterfall, the trickling koi ponds, and the distracting lure of sand. after being there for about 30 minutes or so, iris had an accident. unfortunately she's been having a lot of accidents lately. big ones (albeit, only wet ones- thank goodness! and to say she's had a lot of accidents might be an overstatement... though she has gone from having zero for weeks on end, to now it's exciting when she doesn't have at least one.). she just starts going and doesn't know how to hold back the flow.
i was on the other side of the sand bowl getting ready to take a picture when i saw the panic on her face. i walk over to her and there is a river now flowing under her feet and soaking it's way to the middle of the room. i don't know if she was embarrassed or what she was feeling, but my heart sunk for her. i didn't have any extra pants. one would think that it is perfectly logical to bring a change of clothes for a kid who's been having accidents lately! what was i thinking?? and i didn't want her to have to walk all the way back to the main entrance with soaking wet pants, in front of all those other people and kids... like i said, i don't know if she was embarrassed, or if a three year old knows what it is to be embarrassed, but i wanted to protect her. plus, it was freezing outside! so i told her to get in the stroller.
it didn't occur to me until i started to push the stroller how difficult it was going to be to cart her out of there while holding asher at the same time. not one of my prouder, or more intelligent moments. i basically had to hold asher like a stack of books between my forearm and my hip while i used both hands to try to steer all 37 pounds of preschooler back to the car (and i did make a pit stop at the lobby to tell someone about the accident so that it could be cleaned up). i'm sure i looked ridiculous. just another frazzled mother with a stroller! (and it occurred to me, maybe i do need a double stroller...)
we finally made it back to the car. i had a random plastic bag that i was able to put between iris and her carseat. iris was fine. very cold, but fine. she was probably just fine all along. it was just that initial shock of "oh, crap, i'm peeing!" while she was playing in the sand. but my heart just broke with the thought that maybe she was mortified. and it dawned on me: i am teaching her to be mortified. today, even though i kept my cool (for the most part), was a small lesson in self-consciousness.
here's to my daily dose of mom-guilt.
(but we did have a good time, and it's too bad that it got cut short!)
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