Tuesday, April 19

The Agony of Bonding

I like spending time with my children. They are really great people and they bring me so much joy. And the children like to be with me, too. They like to have little "adventures". All week, I dream up fun things to do with them. On the weekend, I grab my camera, load the kids in the car, and we go out in search of fun.

Some ideas I have are better than others. Sigh.

Dan and I took the children for a walk at Mer Bleue. The children were shocked by this "adventure". Did I really expect them to WALK???? Ummm...YES!

I had to stop three times by the time we got this far in order to deal with Dan's and the children's complaints.


There was a huge puddle blocking the path. Since Dan and I both have holes in our shoes, I had the brilliant idea that the twins should push Sarah through the puddle because they had boots on.


Turns out, both twins had holes in the boots, too (that was complaint #3).

I directed the children to the boardwalk, thinking that it would be fun for them...


...I was wrong.

Katie was annoyed because she was tired of looking at "nature".


Sarah had "issues" with the boardwalk. For the longest time, she walked like this:


I wanted a "group shot". I took about 20 pictures. This was the only one without anyone complaining. The other 19 photos are crap!


Sarah overcame her fear, and wanted to explore. The twinnies refused to walk any further. They had already walked for 7.5 MINUTES!


Even the baby was shocked that the twinnies wouldn't walk any further!


Bethie: "Please don't make me walk anymore. I'm soooooooo tired!"


Bethie: "No one loves me!" (she had a splinter)


Katie: "Just take my picture so we can GO!"


Bethie found something exciting to look at - a Tim Horton's cup tossed in the bog. She started shouting "Why did Daddy throw his cup in the water?!". I explained that it wasn't Daddy, but I'm sure that everyone who passed by thought that we were Litter Bugs. Sigh.


Sarah, too, was enthralled with the garbage.


 But she, obviously, wasn't pleased to see it.


Random "art" which my children broke into, and this attracted ALOT of attention. I headed back to the car and left Dan to deal with the children.


Another group shot. Again, I took about 20 pictures. Here's one where one child looked happy. Sigh.


Katie found the tiniest tree and asked to have her photo taken next to it.


The baby.


The best bit? Splashing in the puddle on the way back to the car. Only Sarah was allowed to splash, due to the rest of us having inadequate footwear. She had a great time, especially because we couldn't go in to retrieve her. We all had to stand around and coax her out!


So, Mer Bleue was not a hit. However, we drove by a farm. I stopped the car and let the children look out the windows at the horses. This is how they prefer to view nature: from a distance. Kinda like "Drive Though Nature".

11 comments:

Double the Giggles said...

Well, fun time or not, I think you did great with the camera... and when the girls are older, they'll have a good laugh after they ask you why they weren't smiling in most of thesecodentw pics!

TheFitHousewife said...

HAHAHA...love it. I'm looking forward to taking the boys on some "adventures" this summer...let's hope they like it too ;)

Bibliomama said...

You're the master of the blog photo essay. It was on one of these occasions where Eve coined the phrase "I HATE the smell of fresh air!"

Gwen said...

Double The Giggles: Thanks. When the kids are older, they will ask "Why don't we ever GOOOOO anywhere?!". I will direct them to this post...

Jen: Good luck with your adventures. If you find something good, let me know. I will put an "Ottawa spin" on it and try it out on my angry brood.

Bibliomama: Eve and the twinnies are kindred spirits! Maybe if I had hired a golf cart to transport my little darlings through the bog, things may have gone better. Maybe next time.

Lara said...

So...when are you moving to that farm?

*snort*

Alicia said...

You get an A+ for effort Mom! I've been thinking of taking E there...I guess I should before he gets too old :)

Gwen said...

Lara: I am fully prepared to move to the farm ALL BY MYSELF! :)

Alicia: Thanks. Sarah enjoyed it. I'm sure that E would love it, too!

Yabut said...

When I take my grandson on these adventures, I take the GPS and we go geocaching. He loves to hunt for treasure as I always let him choose what to take from the cache. He also likes to get his hands on the GPS so he can tell us we're going the wrong way (even if we aren't sometimes). I'll sign off with my other blog so you can see pictures of some of those adventures.

Yabut said...

Sorry. Typo in that link and can't edit it now, so try this one.

Wrath Of Mom said...

HAHAHA. Excursions like this are why we bought a canoe. We plunk the kids in, paddle away from shore. They don't have to walk, they can't escape, they can eat chips and marvel at all the tires on the bottom of the lake and we feel like we've done something educational. And exhausting.

Finola said...

This brought me back to the first time we took our girls for a hike in the Gatineaus. The whining and complaining seemed endless, until I stopped and said: Oh well, I guess you two just don't LIKE hiking. Now we know, we won't have to do it again."
I wasn't actually trying to be passive aggressive or anything - I was completely serious. But after that, there were no complaints whatsoever, and now they love to hike.