if you let your toddler walk to the library...

If you ask your toddler and preschooler if they'd like to walk the 7/10ths of a mile to the library in the snow, rather than ride in the stroller [because it's just a *little* bit of snow after all], they're going to say yes.  Don't you dare leave that stroller at home, but if you do...

The toddler will make it about halfway there and then demand that you carry them.  [On top of their baby sister that you are already carrying.]  As you carry them, most assuredly the snow and sleet will pick up, pelting their little faces, freezing to their little hats, and making the preschooler cry.

If they do cry, most certainly they will wail loudly enough that half the state will hear them, and no less than 17 people will glare at you like the horrible parent that you are.  And as they cry, they will in all likelihood also sit down in the snow and refuse to move, soaking their little bottoms and making them cry all the more.  Still 2/10ths of a mile to go.  When this happens, you will feel like an awful parent, and might start to cry yourself.

If you feel like a horrible parent, your time-obsessed preschooler will almost definitely remind you that they cannot believe that you have made them late to the library story time. Again.  As well as forgot their gloves and *made* them walk.  You will crawl into the library, head barely above water snow, wiping snow and ice and tears off of your babies faces, trying to hold perspective, while still horribly aware of the fact that you don't have the stroller with you and you have to somehow make it back UP the hill to your house in the same inclement weather.

If this happens, I hope a kind stranger-friend will see your angst and stress and icicle hair and hold your baby and rest your soul with real conversation and laughter at your crazy boys singing along to The Wheels on the Bus and Five Little Monkeys.  I hope their smiles and laughter will make you smile and laugh, and just breathe.  Just breathe.  Even for a few minutes.

If you rest just that little bit, you will be able to push through the toddler's ridiculously slow meandering through the rain/sleet/snow as you return home - and be able to laugh at his ability to find every fire hydrant ridiculously fascinating.

If you can laugh at his antics, you will somehow find the muscle strength to carry him and his baby sister up the second half of the hill, chugging like a steam engine rather than crying, because that makes him laugh and somehow makes him seem a little lighter.

If you can both laugh then, you will ride that wave of laughter to continue laughing at them and yourself when you arrive home and two minutes later the baby shoots out 3 days worth of pent up poop up BOTH her back AND her front and onto you.  And the laughter will morph into literally snorting and cackling when seconds later you realize that your bra has come unfastened from carrying both children - and no longer remains in place as an effective blockade when your milk responds to your baby's cries from aforementioned poop.  [You will of course only realize this as milk gushes forth unfettered, soaking you in a double stream of warm chaos like the same fire hydrants that entranced your toddler.]

And if you're laughing then, your toddler and your preschool will either think you've lost your ever living mind, or they will laugh along with you.

And if they laugh along with you, they will somehow forget the cold and snow, and remember only the memories.  And then they will ask you if they can go out in the snow again and walk to the library again.  Because that was fun.  And you - for the love of all things holy - please just continue laughing and do not, repeat, do not, even consider stepping out that door.

Kindness goes a long way.

... Who needs to give a mouse a damn cookie to bring it full circle?