Forest fun

Today I meant to take Christina out to the library. So I packed her up into the backpack I carry her in, and the purse, and went out to get the bus. But I was running late, and might not make it, so when I ran into some friends I stopped to talk to them, and decided to aim for the next one instead. Well then we saw this boy who was fishing in the river "Tinnerbäcken", and looked a little forlorn. I started to talk to him and noticed he was using something that looked like hummus as bait. He asked if I knew what kind of fish it was that he had caught, and if you could eat it. I wasn't sure, but it sort of looked like a braxen, and I said, I don't think it tastes very good. I also taught him how to kill it. But as I walked away, I thought, that fish wasn't dead! If he's not going to eat it, it should go back to the river. So I told him that, and he let it down into the water, and it swam away.
I checked the time, and we still had a good ten-fifteen minutes before the next bus should arrive, so we went into the forest to get to the next bus stop. But we had more adventures to come. There were raspberries growing in the forest! What luck! So I picked a few and shared with Christina, who absolutely loves them. We continued to forage after berries, and also found some wild strawberries and blueberries. The berries were so much fun, we stayed in the forest for close to an hour, walking around, foraging, playing with old pine cones, you know, the fun things you can do in a little forest. I just wanted to remember this day, it was so sweet to be there and pick blueberries and the other berries with Christina.
After we were done in the forest, we walked together down the hill to the next bus stop, and got on the bus. Christina walked the rest of the way, and we took our time looking at people's gardens and some cars. There was a fire truck that passed us, whose driver saw Christina's excited motion towards him, and he waved to her, smiling. What a fun thing for a little girl!
It's hard to describe it well enough to do it justice, maybe the thing is that I have similar memories from when I was a child being in the forest with family and picking berries, and I'm just nostalgic, but it was just so peaceful, and we weren't in a hurry but could take one moment at a time, doing whatever we felt like doing. I think those moments are important for us. Next week we will be out the whole family doing that for our vacation!

Parenting has so many fun moments. Towards the end of our dinner today Christina accidentally knocked her cup of water onto the floor. Knocking the cup of water over is pretty normal, I'd say there's a 95% chance before the meal's over. It's not intentional, and she does just fine drinking without spilling, the problem is she enjoys moving about, gyrating, etc in the high-chair...forgets about the cup, and...down it goes. This particular time it was more full than usual, so down it goes...."oh!" she says, contemplates for a moment, then looks at us to see how we'll react. We both keep our cool. I manage not to show an ounce of annoyance this time, instead I suppress a smile. I guess I'm getting more used to this sort of thing and being able to laugh at it instead of getting annoyed. Mom goes to get a clean cloth diaper to help wipe it up. I say "how about you help mom clean up your mess?". Mom says "how about Christina cleans up her mess!". "Fair enough" I say. We help her down and Ellinor hands her the cloth. "the mess is right over here, please come and clean it up" I say. there was splash damage over by mom which she immediately starts to wipe up (she's really a very willing and helpful little soul!) she then proceeds to walk on her knees over to the major spill site, surveys the situation, and wipes up the edge of it. She leans back and up to inspect her work and exclaims "akaaah!". "good job" i say, "can you please wipe up the rest of it?", "oi, oi oi!" she exclaims as she leans down and wipes some more up. after a couple of seconds she gets up again and exclaims "akaah!" apparently thinking she's done. I commend her work thus far but point out that there is more water to wipe up. "oi, oi, oi!" and wipes up some more. we're at about 70% cleanup now, which is really impressive for a 20 month old, so we give her a big thanks as she runs into the living room to read a book. I finish the job. Christina is awesome:-)