To celebrate our last day of summer break together, we let Audrey choose what we would do. She decided she wanted to have a picnic at Broad Ripple Park, which was a great idea given our unseasonably cooler temps and the fact that we hadn’t been to BR Park all summer. A perfect way to wrap up the last couple months.
So we packed our favorite sandwiches (peanut butter & honey), some ripe summer peaches, and leftover birthday cake from this weekend in Chicago (more on that later), and headed over to the park.
With almost every school in the Indy metro area back in session, the park was full of mothers of young children. Nearly every woman there had a pregnant belly or a baby or a toddler on her hip or any combination of the three. A few were clustered together as friends, probably having a play date. As my girls and I finished eating, the two of them ran off, as fast as they could, to climb up the slides and swing on the monkey bars. I sat back on our blanket and happily watched them play with flushed cheeks and genuine giggles.
What a perfect way to end our summer, indeed. On this Eve of Kindergarten and Eve of a Fourth Birthday, I couldn’t help but realize just how ridiculously true that old adage – the days are long but the years are short – truly is. You see, it wasn’t all that long ago when I was the mom with a bursting belly and a toddler on my hip. Four years ago, to be exact. I was the mom at this very same park pushing the girls on swings, carrying them over to the slides. I was the mom who met her fellow play group moms here week after week, once all the older kiddos were in school, and it was just us left in the end-of-summer stickiness: our routines still the same day after day, the blurry afternoons of diapers and bottles and naps. Those play dates were my sanctuary, my sanity. They kept me from feeling alone on the days when loneliness was inevitable.
I watched these other moms today, from my blanket under the tree, and I wanted so badly to tell them that it gets better. So, so much better. Even if you think it’s pretty darn good right now. That’s the secret: it just keeps getting better. That’s the piece of wisdom that gets lost in between “savor every minute” and “don’t blink.” Sure, I looked at their swollen bellies and sweet toddler cheeks, and I felt a wave of nostalgia for those days. How could I not? I loved those elbow dimples, those slobbery kisses, those butterfly kicks in my belly, those first steps. But as I scanned the crowd for my two little ladies, chasing a butterfly together off in the distance, I felt so proud and so excited to be where we are right now. The girls raced back over to our blanket, toppling over one another in a fit of laughter, and I realized, in that second, that it is these very little girls who keep me from feeling alone now. They are my sidekicks, my helpers, my friends. I will always carry our play group days close to my heart, of course, but I love where we are today. I am so grateful for that.
After a while, the girls decided to go on a treasure hunt around the park. To their delight, would you believe it, they found a “treasure note” on the hunt. I could hear their squeals from across the park. They fought over who was going to present the treasure note to Mom to read (at least they still need me for something). They carefully brought the infamous note over to our blanket and delicately laid it out in front of me.
“Read it! Read it, Mom!”
“What does it say? I can’t believe we found a treasure note!”
“Hurry up, Mom!”
“Why is it taking you so long to read it? Come on!!!”
“Mom! Why are you laughing? Is it funny?”
Here is the note. Not funny at all, of course, but really? Someone wrote this on a post-it in the park?
What. Is that a joke?? What kind of treasure note is that?
I have never been happier to say I am sending my girl to Kindergarten in less than twenty-four hours, and gleefully, she cannot yet read. Please, oh please, let me hold on to her innocence for just a littttttle bit longer.
For anyone out there who also cannot yet read, the note said, very kindly:
“William Taylor is my friend, and I want everyone to know how much I like him. We have a lot of fun together in the park. The End.”
(P.S. Dear William Taylor, Pull it together, dude. Don’t be so ridiculous.)
Sometimes a Picnic in the Park is so much better while wearing rose-colored glasses. And sometimes you need a little reminder that it feels so very good to be exactly where you are. For us, that’s past the point of babies and diapers but before the point of fully reading and learning some unsavory truths about the world. On our picnic blanket today, the three of us were right where we needed to be.
Lucy’s last day as a three-year-old and Audrey’s last day before kindergarten. May their hugs always be this tight.
