It was a chilly day here in Vancouver, but that didn’t stop us from spending the day outside… It started with an early morning walk around the block. Now that may not sound like a lot, but when you stop to splash in each puddle and visit with each picketing teacher, just one loop around the block takes a significant amount of time.
When we originally walked out the door, Gracen had bent over, tapped her pointer on the sidewalk and said, “Star. Star!” I asked if she wanted to draw stars on the sidewalk with chalk (she’s all about stars and hearts right now) and she enthusiastically nodded ‘yes’. I told her that we would do just that upon our return, and she certainly didn’t forget. The second we stepped up on our walk, she reminded me of my promise. We worked on our sidewalk art for a while, and then Grae focused her attention on expanding the size of her ever-growing rock collection.
We headed inside for a few minutes, but Gracen wasn’t done with being outdoors. As I tidied the kitchen and got started on lunch, she decided she’d have a tea party in the solarium. She played for a long while as I secretly snuck peeks of her pouring cups of tea and nibbling on plastic sweets. I got away with it several times, but eventually got caught. It turned out that being caught was a huge treat, because when I did, I got showered with ‘through the screen kisses’ and then got to enjoy this little show of funny faces.
It wasn’t easy, but I lured her in with a grilled avocado and cheddar sandwich (avocado being the key factor) and a banana almond oatmeal smoothie. But after lunch and a great nap, guess who was back outside having afternoon tea?
I took that as a hint and decided we better fit in some more outdoor time before winding down for the day. We got bundled up for the cold, jumped in the vehicle, and literally just drove around looking for a fun new playground to visit. Gracen was my little helper as usual, and every time she saw a play structure or open green space, she’d shout, “Par!” (park) from the back seat. We eventually found ourselves at an old school in the Marpole area and the playground was perfect.
We played until our hands were numb and our noses were red and then headed home to defrost with a hot dinner and a warm bath.