Social Distancing day 18: Sidewalk chalk

The big adventure of the day was to go to a friend's house and write a message for them on the side walk to say "hello".  We live in a hilly neighborhood and our friend is maybe 3/4 of a mile a way up a really steep hill.  Both kids can walk that far but that doesn't always mean it will be a pleasant walk or that I won't have to carry Flynt for a bit.  Flynt is also going though a "you can't hold my hand or I will scream like you are poking hot needles into my eyes" phase and a "if you tell me not to do something I probably will" phase and a couple other fun ones that makes walking longer distances tricky.  I brought the double jogger and by the second street crossing Flynt was in full meltdown mode, yay for two year olds.  I dumped him in the jogger and put on a Audible "Frog and Toad" book and he was happy in about 2 seconds.  I think after 3 more steps Wren declared she couldn't possibly walk any further and hopped in and they both listened to stories as I pushed the ridiculously heavy stroller up the stupidly steep hill.

Honestly, it was lovely.  I got to walk at a nice fast pace, no one was yanking on my arms or wrapping themselves around my legs.  We weren't stopping to touch everything.  There were no questions.  They were happy and quiet.  We will take more stroller walks.  I will buy more Audible books.

We got to our friends house and everyone happily clambered out of the stroller and we got to work making a fabulous mess out of their sidewalk.  First we drew a Ghost Busters symbol because the little boy who lives there is big into Ghost Busters.  I'm 99% sure he's never seen anything other than the music video for the song but he is always pretend playing he is a ghost buster.  Next Wren wanted to make a hop scotch board for him to play on and us too.  I wrote a note to his family and then Flynt wanted help drawing a rocket ship.  It is really hard to do nice chalk art with two kids helping and climbing on you but it really didn't matter what it looked like.  It was colorful and fun.  We played with chalk for about 44 minutes.  Both kids and I were covered in chalk dust.  The walk was maybe 20-30 each way (I took the long way down the hill).  It was a super pleasant afternoon for everyone.

I got a really nice text from my friend later in the evening that they found our chalk art when they were getting out for a walk and that they really loved it and it made everyone smile.  Super fun for my kids and we spread some joy in the process, bonus!