Leaving the neighborhood used to be so simple. Before I had a kid, I would just put on my shoes, grab the dog’s leash and go for a walk.
Now that I have Piper there are, like, 42 additional steps to the process. One of which usually involves changing a diaper full of poop RIGHT before I am about to walk out the door.
But I was determined to do it. And I was bringing my husband and dog along with me. (Some might think leaving the house is easier with the husband, but in this case not so much.)
I knew I wanted to take Miss Pipes to the park which was about 1.5 miles from our house. There is a baby swing there, and I thought it would be fun to try it out.
First step in the process: Google At what age can my baby swing in a swing?
I figured out that even though she was just 4.5 months old that if I put a blanket around her to fill the extra space in the swing and I didn’t push her too hard that we would be fine.
Armed with new-found knowledge about infants and playground equipment, we were off to the park.
The whole time my husband kept saying, “I think its going to rain,” “Babe, it’s probably going to rain.” Ughhhh I kept telling him to shut it — that it would be fine, but he would have none of it.
As you all know a happy wife is a happy life, so despite his protests we marched on.
Along the way we had to stop at a field and let the dog run off his leash. After he proceeded to eat deer poop and chase a small child, we leashed him back up and continued on our way. Next stop: swings!!!
Piper looked at me pretty darn skeptically when I was loading her up, but after a few pushes she thought they were pretty neat. Great. Now we are going to have to buy one of these for the yard. Â The look on her little face when she was feeling the wind at her back and taking it all in was priceless.
Next step was the slide. I told Tyler, my husband, that he needed to take the baby and the dog down the slide since they both equally like it. He was less than thrilled with this idea, but he is a great sport so he played along. Dog liked it, while baby was kind of like, ehhhh.
Last up, the pull up bars, or monkey bars as the kids call them. Since Tyler and I are avid crossfitters we thought it would be fun to make the baby look like she was doing a pull up.
But then she licked the monkey bars and we completely freaked out thinking she had contracted hepatitis and had to start for home. Plus she was quickly approaching the “I’m about to lose my shit” phase of the day.
And what do you know?
It rained on us the last mile home. Now if you ask me it was just a light drizzle, almost kind of peaceful. If you ask my husband it was a monsoon and he wanted to run the whole way home. Sorry babe, I don’t run.
