Bagel dates with my boy.

This is Everett, who carried his two sticks that were his "magic wands," wanted to wear no shoes, but insisted on wearing his hood so that he would be ready for the rain (note: it was a sunny day). He is silly and fun and adventurous, and I want to be more like him.

I started a tradition with Everett this fall where we go on a "bagel date." We walk to a coffee shop that is about a mile from our house, where I'm the awkward mom struggling to push her double stroller through the coffee shop door. We each order a bagel, and while we eat them on the patio, we talk about our lives. He doesn't really know what it means to talk about his life, but it's fun to try. I hope that we are establishing a foundation for our relationship in the years to come.  My dream is that I can still take him on a bagel (or beer) date even after he has moved out of the house and is off having a life all his own, and that he will still answer me when I ask him, "how is your life?"

This time when I asked him, he told me, "I'm sometimes happy and sometimes sad. Sometimes I like to cry like Grandpa does when he watches Moana." 

Cambria fell asleep in the stroller on the way home, so we were able to really take our time walking back, and we turned it into our school lesson for the day: a nature walk. The goal was to notice and collect beautiful things we found on our walk home. The rule was that whatever we collected couldn't be growing still, because I didn't want to teach him to steal people's flowers. 

When we got home, we laid them all out, and he got to take photographs of his treasures. We talked about what colors he found and what his favorites were. It was simple and fun for both of us.