important life lessons

i yell at my children, more often than i should admit to. but i yell at them with love and the best of intentions. and sometimes, i even yell good and important things at them. yesterday i was shown proof that at least one of them is listening.

i have already learned much about this walking to and from school business. i have learned that the boys are at an age where the school doesn't check if their parents are there before letting them out. in fact, there is a girl in bumble's grade who lives a block further away than us that walks by herself everyday. the boys think this is a  great idea, and want to implement it themselves. i said those famous motherly words: "we'll see."

i have also learned, through trial and error, that dear fish is not up to walking back and forth to the school twice a day. she is best at walking in the morning, and will even run to try and keep up with her brothers. in the afternoon, i push her in her stroller, and let her play on the playground while waiting for the boys to be released. i'm honestly not sure if the afternoon is harder because the walk falls so close to the end of nap time, or if i'm just out of patience for her dawdling at that point in the day. either way, the stroller works.

another thing i have learned is that there is more then on way to get from our house, through the neighborhood, and to school. with the crazy design of the streets, there are a silly number of different routes, but we have been trying to find the fastest. because there was some discussion between my boys and i about which way to go, we took a different path home yesterday afternoon.

it was, in my personal opinion, no shorter than our normal route. it was also not a way i would want to walk to school because of a large hill, but going home meant going down, and i was fine with that. the only plus i see in going that way is that we go past a different playground. thought it wasn't much of a plus yesterday because the slide was too hot to use and there was a spider on the see-saw.

so, instead of getting to play, we all agreed to walk home and eat popsicles. and because my boys are secretly teens and i am totally lame, they decided to run ahead while i slowly pushed their sister home.

and before i could even open my mouth, my dear fish yells "be careful and stay together!" and so they did.

all i could do was smile, because i knew, in spite of all of my doubts and fears of failure, my kids were at least getting the important stuff i was trying to teach them.