A day at the Gardens

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach
out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”


― Eleanor Roosevelt

I always feel this way by the end of August.  I feel pent up and I long to get outside and see nature.   Its hot here and our grass is brown and the mosquitoes are swarming and I start to feel very claustrophobic.   It started getting to me on Sunday morning and B was gone to watch a soccer game.  So, I packed up the baby and made a quick picnic and headed to the botanical gardens.  On my way there I remembered the mosquitoes and the very real threat of West Nile so I made a quick trip by Babies R Us for some bug spray.  When I finally pulled into the parking lot, L was rubbing her eyes and the sky was very overcast but I doused us in the bug spray and started pushing the stroller on to the nearest path.  It was about halfway to the Nature boardwalk that I realized I had a very low tire on the jogging stroller.  So that was fun, but I kept going.  We walked in silence until the trees cleared and the rose garden was in view.  L, walked through the rose garden on her own.  She must have exclaimed "oh wow, what is that" about 100 times.  I didn't have anywhere to be for several hours so I went at her pace. At one point she wanted to walk up and down a ramp multiple times and I sat on a bench and watched her.  Eventually she wanted to sit on the bench and spent several minutes examining a flower.  I took pictures of her as she explored.  In fact so many of the ones I got were of the back of her head as she was off on her own.  She would wander ahead and then turn around and run back to the stroller.  She was so brave and yet still very close to me.  We ended our long walk with a picnic by the turtle pond. Where we fed the turtles and giant white  (extremely gross) catfish the dropped grapes and strawberries. 

 Even though I am home most of the time with her Sunday morning was one of those rare mornings when the phone was put away and all of our obligations were hours later in the day.   I will treasure that time of just chatting and being with my little toddler.  I came home to a sink full of breakfast dishes but it was worth every moment.


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