Category: Minnesota

The girls and I enjoyed a leisurely wander around downtown Northfield this morning. The weather was perfectly warm and sunny, so we were able to comfortably walk from the coffeeshop south along the river to the lovely new spot where the ducks and geese congregate, waiting for bread crumbs. After jumping off each and every stone there, we headed north on the riverwalk, crossing the river on the pedestrian and 2nd Street bridge, which proved to be excellent spots for throwing rocks and sticks into the river – attracting quite a few ducks who were instantly annoyed that the sticks weren’t edible. The girls ran, walked, skipped, hopped, danced, and even curtseyed (Julia being one of the few people in the world who can curtsey and still move forward); I mostly just walked very slowly and prevented anyone from falling down or in.

Having been walking for an hour or more by then, we stopped at a little white riverside gazebo, where we rested and enjoyed a game of Simon Says, which was amusing mostly because Vivi doesn’t yet understand that when you’re the leader, you’re supposed to try to trick the others into doing something that Simon didn’t say. She’s just too goodhearted to have figured out ways to make everyone else foul up.

Amidst all this low-key activity, it was interesting to watch downtown wake up. When we started, around nine, only the coffeeshop had anyone in it, and not even many people at that. As we walked, a few more people meandered by – a few runners and walkers, a few couples out for coffee – but things only livened up to the normal downtown hubub around eleven, as peopled streamed out of the downtown hotel and streamed into the couple restaurants offering brunch. And shortly after that, the sidewalk out front of the coffeeshop filled up with cyclists finishing their morning rides. It says something about Northfield that our resident biker gang wears spandex and rides $4,000 bicycles.

The girls wanted to hit the playground after dinner, and since it was pretty much the perfect summer evening out there, we did. Usually these outings are brief and end when someone, too tired to really have fun, loses her $#!%. Tonight’s outing couldn’t have been more the opposite. They cheerfully let me put on some sunscreen, happily put on their sandals and sunglasses, and energetically raced out the door.

Ten minutes of jogging later, we were at the playground, which was totally deserted and thus perfect for two sisters to do whatever the heck they wanted. Having forgotten my phone, my iPod, and even any paper, I had nothing to do but sit, hum “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to myself (why, I dunno), and watch Julia and Genevieve race around, giggling and laughing and having a great time.

After half an hour of fun on the ladders and slides – easily the longest they’ve ever played at a playground without my intervention – they switched to playing “Princesses and Monster,” which entailed more running, climbing, and sliding but also a good uptick in shrieking. The monster, it seemed, kept capturing one of the sisters and locking her in the playset tunnel, which was actually an oven. The other sister, luckily, could always rescue the inmate, allowing them both to flee to the top of the “castle” and then down the slide. Shriek and repeat.

After another fifteen minutes of this, the girls abruptly decided they were very thirsty, so we headed for home – which required us to slip past the monster’s hiding spot at the edge of the park. Luckily, Vivi found a long stick that she could wield as a sword (“dord”) to poke the monster, which was – Julia informed us – “made of beef that’s very soft and new.” We dispatched the monster and made our way back to the house.

Halfway there, we saw that our neighbor had just returned from a nearly month-long trip overseas. Julia and Genevieve have sorely missed the six-year-old member of the family, so we ran the rest of the way, getting to our shared entry just before they went inside. The girls’ friend was terribly jetlagged, but still excited to give them their presents: identical sets of Hello Kitty pencils, notepads, and erasers. J & G thanked her profusely, then went inside to enjoy a well-deserved snack – five Wheat Thins and about ten glasses of ice water for each kid – and get ready for bed. What a perfect evening.

As we often do, the girls and I broke up the Sunday-morning monotony with a little outing in the neighborhood. Since the new bike path is so nice, I proposed that they ride their bikes up the road a ways. Vivi liked this idea, but Julia said, no, “I prefer to walk and push Care Bear in the stroller.”

I knew that there was no way in the world she’d actually push the stroller the whole time – and thus that I’d end up carrying it for most of the walk – but I decided to let that go in favor of encouraging her to wear actual shoes and socks, rather than the sandals which she is literally wearing to shreds and which are also pretty terrible to wear while actually walking. This recommendation was rejected on her usual grounds: “Daddy, I don’t like the way shoes look with skirts! Sandals are much prettier with skirts!”

This is an argument I cannot win, so after my usual grumbles about how she’d be picking pebbles out of the straps and stumbling over rocks, we headed out. Vivi rode up ahead, riding her Big Wheel at a million miles an hour, and Julia trailed behind, pushing Care Bear in the stroller and stopping frequently to minister to the doll. After we stopped for our snack, Julia decided that she didn’t want to push the stroller anymore. I folded the $#&(#% thing up and started carrying it, trying at the same time to keep Vivi was veering off the path into the weeds.

Noticing that Julia wasn’t next to me, I turned around to find her sitting in the dirt, shaking rocks and sand out of her sandals. “Daddy, the rocks really hurt my feet!” I didn’t even respond, mostly because Vivi was again motoring toward some obstacle. As I corrected her course, I heard a scream from behind us. I whipped around. Julia was just getting up off the pavement after falling. Her right knee was magnificently bloody, and her left sandal was falling off her foot. “What happened, honey?” I asked, wiping the blood off her knee with my hand. She sobbed out, “My sandal strap wasn’t tight and the sandal made me trip!”

I derived no satisfaction from being right on every count. Thankfully, she got over the accident quickly and enjoyed the rest of the walk – even though sometimes we had to jog to catch up to Vivi.