Every first Friday of the month, Bella's school does a walk to school event. Supposedly it is supposed to show our support of the environment. However, the event does not involve walking from your house to school, rather, everyone meets up at this park and walks the 1/2 mile or so to school. I am pretty sure, far more fossil fuels are used than if all the kids just took the bus. Almost everyone, myself included, drives to the park. Also, the buses still run, because they can't make it mandatory. It is still quite a fun thing. They set up a little table where the kids all sign their names and there is hot chocolate for the kids and coffee for the adults. I think they get sponsored by Starbucks and Einstein Bagels, because there is a large collection. Erin always gets a bagel, takes one bite and then makes Tuyen carry it around for her.
Behind closed doors, Erin is pretty friendly towards me. She likes me to swing her by her arms so high that her feet almost hit the ceiling, she enjoys making up words and songs and is generally a nut. In public though, it is a different story. I may as well be a stranger. She only wants to hang out with her Mommy. She won't let me pick her up, she won't really even talk to me. It is kind of the reverse of a domestic violence relationship where the abuser treats the victim well in public but not well behind closed doors.
Fortunately, Bella is nice to me both in public and private. Today, while we were waiting for the walk to start, we continued the heated game of duck duck goose (DDG) we started at the house. For a little while, it was me, Bella and Erin playing, but Erin ducked out and it was heads up DDG from that point on. I really love that Bella was up for one on one DDG. There is not a whole lot of surprise in the game, except for how many times Bella will pat you on the head before she finally calls you a goose. Usually a good 15 times of being called a duck first. Bella also refers to the person that picks the goose as the "ducker". After this, we engaged in a series of races. They started out as simple foot races, but once Erin and Tuyen got involved we transitioned to hopping races, lunge races, skipping races and walking backward races. Erin always won the walking backwards race, because her interpretation of walking backwards is sprinting forwards!
The thing with Erin, as I may have mentioned before, is that if she gets the slightest bit of moisture on any of her clothing, she will immediately attempt to remove that article, regardless of whether she is wearing anything underneath. She has zero tolerance for dampness. Unfortunately, she took a spill this morning and got a bit of mud on one of her knees. She was very upset about that and demanded to be changed immediately. We didn't have any extra clothes, and luckily she decided to keep her pants on!
When the walk finally did start, Erin of course refused to walk with me at all. Bella and I walked along though. When Erin walks, unless she is super excited about the destination, she really takes it easy, just a super slow pace. In fact, when she holds your hand she kind of leans back into her walk, just to make it even a bit slower. However, it is a large group of people all walking, so you don't really notice how slow Erin is going. It only took a little time to get to school and Bella was very excited to be there, so it was a good excursion.
On the way back, it looked like it would start to rain pretty soon. Surprisingly, Erin doesn't mind the rain. I think she is ok with her entire body getting wet, but does not appreciate when only a portion of it does. So she was in no hurry and continued her leisurely stroll back to the vehicle.
We weighed the girls this morning, Bella was 44 pounds and Erin was 30, starting to bulk up! Of course, anytime I asked Erin if she wanted me to carry her, I was quickly rebuffed in no uncertain terms, we were in public after all! She had no problem with Tuyen carrying her, but it is tough for Tuyen to carry her long distances. Finally, I just walked ahead a bit and brought the truck to Erin rather than Erin to the truck!
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