Weekdays, schedule-wise, can be a blur. Once the kids are up, it's like we're running a pit stop to get to the start of the school day: room clean-up, clothes, breakfast, and so on. And, once the kids are home, the path to bedtime is similarly methodical: dinner, clean-up, stories, and so on.
So last weekend it was nice to let the schedule flow at their own pace. Amy was putting the finishing touches on her paper, so I took the kids downtown in the morning. We meandered through Reading Terminal Market and Chinatown en route to Franklin Square, where they enjoyed the playground equipment to their heart's content; and we only left when they were ready to leave. From there, we headed to Independence Mall, where again the amount of time and type of activity was determined by them, with no hollering or resistance from me. It was a lovely day, so despite my generally impatient and rushed nature, I had no problem simply watching them be kids: rumbling around the grass, picking dandelions for their mother, occasionally circling back to me to report what they had seen.
Finally, they were ready to go home, so we headed for a subway station and were soon home for lunch. Amy was glad for the morning to herself and for all the dandelions. And the kids seemed happy, too; after a whole week of "rush, rush," they got to go at their pace for a little bit.
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