Sunday, August 12, 2012

A Date With My Daughter

So today, Lamb tells me she wants to go on a picnic and feed the ducks down by the pond.

So we did. We made sandwiches (PB and J for her; half of a roast beef and cheese for me), packed desserts and drinks, bagged some bread, and dug up an old blanket.

It was a nice day that wasn't too hot, and the sound of the fountain in the pond was soothing. I mostly avoided the geese droppings to spread out the blanket (yes, it went into the laundry after the picnic).

Lamb took off her shoes to enjoy the scenery. I told her if you didn't look behind us at the office building it almost seemed like we were out in the country. It's a big pond and the trees on the far bank blocking my condo complex made it seem bucolic.

Lamb protested that we'd have to avoid looking at the dumpsters to our left. And she could see the roof of one building over the trees.

Sigh. OK, I said, if you look at this area (cupping my hands in a telescope and looking through it), it seems like we are in the country!

She accepted that.

Eventually some geese wandered nearby. So we packed up our garbage and leftovers, and Lamb led the charge to the geese. I reined her in to avoid scaring off the geese in her eagerness.

Only some of them hissed. But they were hungry and ate the bread. Lamb even held one chunk for a particularly brave goose to snatch from her hand.

We looked for some ducks over where we spotted the tiniest ducklings I'd ever seen a few months ago. But there were none.

We wandered off to another complex where I've seen ducks, but the two ducks there were not hungry at all.

Then we walked home.

It was really a nice little impromptu time with my little girl. Mister was happy to stay at home while we headed out.

This is the kind of stuff I will miss so much when my children are grown and living their own lives.