Between School Time

On Mondays I teach an evening class and have become used to squeezing in family time between jobs. Amanda too had to return to work this evening, so we decided to take the kids to the playground.

Amanda had been feeling ill today, so I went out onto the jungle gym, while she looked on from a nearby bench. A little boy playing alone joined us and we all ended up on the merry-go-round. There was a shallow moat surrounding the platform that made spinning it very difficult. I ran in circles for a while, spinning the boys. Then I jumped on to join in the fun. For some reason I decided to look to the center of the merry-go-round instead of looking around...

A short while after this, I was spinning the kids and the boy we met at the park when Alex fell off the side and landed in the muddy water... Needless to say he was quite upset by this.

We left the playground, stopping to pick up a change of clothes we keep at his daycare and drove to my house to get him cleaned up. Once he was in his dry clothes we all played outside for a few minutes, stopping to stand upon the stump of the great oak tree that once stood between my and my neighbor's house.

Amanda and I remained as the kids went back to playing. She and I looked at one another and lamented for the pair of feet that was missing from our gathering. "He has your feet," she said to me. "They're just like yours."