Throwing Rocks

It was 70 degrees and sunny today, so Owen and I spent the majority of our time outside. We started by heading to the zoo with Owen's good buddies James and Belle. It was a great day to be there, but Owen wasn't as interested in the animals as I thought he would be. He was more interested in just walking around and climbing on benches, and of course eating his snacks. He took a spill while trying to climb on a fence to look at the giraffes and landed on his head, but he was fine.

Owen fell asleep on the way home and slept for 25 minutes. He was awake by the time we got home and my attempts at getting him back to sleep in his crib failed miserably. I was pretty frustrated because I knew he was tired, but I gave in and decided to head to the park since it was just too pretty to stay in and be in a bad mood. It was a good decision. Owen spent the first 30 minutes or so playing on the playground. I can't get over how much he has changed just since last fall, when I would have to follow him up the stairs and down the slides, to now where he's off and running and even I am feeling pretty confident about his ability out there.

Next we walked over to the lake to see if we could find any ducks. There were no ducks out today, but we found a nice spot to sit down next to a big pile of rocks and we started throwing them in the water. After 10 minutes of this I started suggesting that it was time to go home. Owen did not like that idea - "I don't want to go home, I just want to throw rocks". That's when I had a moment. Just a moment of realization that we didn't really need to go home. The only reason I thought we should was because I felt it was time to move on to the next task; to continue on our day. His little words struck me and made me realize that THIS is what it is all about. Stopping to take time to just sit and throw rocks in the water. He was SO happy where he was. We started talking about the different sounds that the rocks made, and tested out throwing them with different hands (I really think he's going to be right-handed). Every now and then a spider would run by that would distract him, but he'd quickly go back to the rocks. We sat there for I don't know how long and I just watched and played along. It was so pretty outside and I'm sure that added to the overall feeling. It all just helped me realize that this is what being a Mom is all about, and that I am SO blessed that I have him in my life, and to be able to spend these moments with him. I apologize for the overly-sappy tone of this post, but it was just one of those moments and I don't want to forget about it.... I wish I had some pictures, but I didn't have my camera with me today.

I'd love to say that the rest of our evening was spent as carefree and joyfully...but I was dealing with a two year old who'd been outside all day and had only a 25 minute nap. It's funny how you can go from one extreme - like our time at the park - to another - like when he was on the floor kicking and screaming as I was making dinner and praying that Ben would get home soon. But even that now makes me grin because I realize that it's just all part of being a Mommy. I love it. I'll try and remind myself of that next time he's on the floor screaming or feeding the cat food to the dog (or himself) ;)