seizing the day

Dennis and I spent over four consecutive hours playing outdoors today. It was a sunny and breezy 69 degree day here, and I made the executive decision to ignore the mountain of housework and projects that need my attention in favor of exercising my kid and myself (and, as it turns out, my mother). Dennis played for two hours at the city park playground with many other children also out enjoying the day. He joined a gang of them and helped build this giant sand castle/volcano surrounded by a rubber-chip moat/ring of grass (depending on which kid you asked). The other kids taught him how to load his shirt with rubber chips and carry them across the playground to their construction site (in the sand under the swings). He quickly joined in the fun. He ran and climbed and played and I had to bribe him with a picnic to get him to leave peacefully. We picked up some food from Sonic and picnicked at the table of his choice at Goosepond Park. Then he got in his stroller and I walked four miles. Gran joined us for the walk. Dennis complained for the first half of the walk and napped in the stroller for the second half. He says I can sell the jogging stroller now. He's probably right. I'm going to have to find a better way to get in my long, fast walks. He suggested I use the Wii and do Walk It Out (and promised to do it with me). I told him we would when it rains out.

We ran errands with Gran this afternoon, two home improvement stores, and after the second one, I met Dennis and Gran at the car. I got in and heard "Mommy, I put my seat belt on." I said "wonderful!" and he said "that's not what I thought you'd say--I thought you'd ask me why I put my seatbelt on and I would say it's so you wouldn't say 'Dennis put your seatbelt on RIGHT NOW'" (this last said in a very convincing parental growl). We all had a good laugh. And he learned a new word today--"nagging". I told him it was nagging when he asked me the same question over and over and over after I'd already answered (I got some heavy nagging this morning: "can I take my bike to the playground" asked over a dozen times in a row). Tonight we were at Gran's, cooking supper and getting ready to Zumba, when Dennis said he wasn't going to Zumba. He said he was going to do "the Dennis exercises" with Pop, and he couldn't wait to get started. Then he suddenly yelled "Pop, stop nagging me--you're going to have to go to Time Out if you keep nagging me!". Pop had been relatively silent, trying stealthily to avoid whatever "Dennis exercises" that Dennis had planned for him. We don't know why that was considered nagging to Dennis! If anything, Dennis was the nagger of the day. He must have had a ten million word quota that he was trying to meet.