Botanical Garden

What a wonderful, incredibly tiring, and perfect Mother’s Day I had.  My parents, my kids, and I met my beautiful sister and her husband at the Memphis Botanical Gardens.  Our plan was to have a picnic on the grounds, then stroll among the beautiful gardens, chatting and watching the kids feed the koi. 

Best laid plans and all that…  My sister got stuck in a huge traffic jam on I-40 and was really late meeting us there.  Meanwhile, my daughter took a short nap in the car while my Dad took my son over to a playground near the Gardens, thinking he would enjoy playing on the equipment while we waited for my sister.  Instead, all William wanted to do was play in a glorified drainage ditch.  He never went near the playground.  Secretly I think it’s neat he’d rather play in a ditch than a playground.  If I don’t allow myself to think too much about waterborne diseases.

We finally met up with my sister and went over to the Gardens.  She had prepared wonderful food brought in an actual picnic basket, while I had brought kid snacks in a Target bag, which is at least minimally better than bringing them in a Kroger bag. William even said at one point (referring I am quite sure to the picnic basket part, not the Target bag part), “This is a proper picnic!!!”, which cracked up all up.  I swear I don’t talk like that so I don’t know where that terminology came from… but really, it was a proper picnic. 

So 15 minutes of proper picnic, and then began the Day of Great Exertion and Endless Running.  My daughter decided she’d had enough of being proper, and wandered into the rose garden, where I took these pictures:

A little confession should be inserted here.  Even though it is Mother’s Day and I love both my children equally and dearly, I didn’t even get one picture of William, as the whole time I was chasing Caroline and he was busy building a mouse dock over at the Japanese lake.  Yes, you read that correctly, and I didn’t ask either.  By the time I finally saw William again, I had given up taking pictures since Caroline kept trying to use my lens as a foothold to climb higher up my head.

When Caroline and I finally caught up with everyone else, she discovered the bridge.  Henceforth known as the Bridge of Great Back and Forth Amusement and Constant Climbing Fun.  After I took these pictures the camera went back into the bag.

You will have to use the above picture as a placeholder for the one I really wanted to take of my own two children holding hands and walking over this fantastic bridge.  Instead here is a nice picture of an anonymous, yet lovely, little girl doing what I wanted my own two kids to be doing.  But as we all know, we can’t have everything, and as there are mouse docks to be built and Mommy’s hair to use as a rope (or “rup”, as Caroline says), I didn’t get my dream picture today.  But we will be back when the kids are teenagers.

Still, it was a perfect day spending time with my own mother and sister, and my lovely kids.  There are worse things in this world than watching your kids romp all day through beautiful gardens.  Especially if you are a mouse with a newly built boat who has finally found the perfect dock, and only after your boat sinks do you realize the dock was built by a six-year-old.

Coming in the next few days – pictures from Sophie’s Fiesta!

And OK people – enough lurking! I see you visiting.  Just take a took at my fancy little map! So please, let me know who you are! Comments are welcome.  I want to know who you are, how you found me, and why you’ve actually read this far about my little Adventures in Mommy-hood. 

Happy Mother’s Day!