Emi and I had mostly a great day together today.
Hung around this morning — watched a movie, did some drawing, played some games. Decided to go out to the treasure (thrift) stores to see if there was anything to find. I brought the field recording thinking that I could get some interesting noises, totally forgetting that it would all be ruined by the background music they pump into stores. I also sort of felt like we might not get to go out like this again for awhile since the covid numbers are spiking and another lockdown is pretty likely.
On the way there we passed a playgound that Emi likes and she asked if we could stop there on the way back. I told her sure as long as there weren’t too many people there. We pulled in and it seemed ok, but after getting up the hill I saw there were a lot more people than I’d guessed. Emi was THRILLED to be around so many kids, and is very good with keeping her mask on, so I thought it would be ok to stay for a little bit. Pretty surprising and disappointing to see so many of the parents and kids there not wearing masks. Anyway, Emi and a few girls were playing in the sandbox when I told her we needed to go and she came along without any fuss at all. Once we got into the car she started crying really softly and it broke my heart. “We didn’t get to finish making our cake, Dad.” I sat in the back with her and tried to assure her that it won’t always be like this and that we will be able to see people again. I don’t think she was very comforted and I really wasn’t either.
Once we got home she seemed to feel better (a lesson in resiliency from 4-year olds to us all) and we played outside for awhile. We have a small pond near our house that’s flocked with ducks and geese so we went and sat together and watched them chase each other around. Our last last hurrah was that I realized that it was this week 3 years ago that I went vegan, so while the restaurants are still open we ordered takeout from our favorite Red Fern and enjoyed the hell out of it. Ash and I used to go there on dates pre-pandemic and are really looking forward to doing that again.
We will get there. ♥