Monday, August 21, 2017

The Kindness of Strangers

Last week we went camping at Presqu'ile Provincial Park.  Despite the heavy rains recently, we had mostly clear weather.  We had a beautiful site right on the water.  We remembered most of our supplies.  And yet...

And yet, Gavin and I struggled to keep up with the demands of the day.  There was no time for playing, relaxing, having fun or just watching the children.  Feeding, medicating, dressing, diaper changing, cooking on a camp stove, cleaning dishes in cold water and dealing with bugs and heat left us completely exhausted.  There was no time to just be.  To just enjoy.

Zoe was a bit rashy, she started running a fever and she has these enormous bowel movements we could not even begin to explain but wouldn't want to anyway.  The point of bringing it up at all is that a diaper change can take literally 90 minutes and involve at least Zoe and one adult getting a shower, sometimes two adults.  Zoe uses a commode at home, but taking the enormous commode along while travelling is not possible.  And so we end up with this issue on most trips.  It is very frustrating for all of us, especially Zoe.

And so we felt frustrated and angry but mostly we felt sad.  As Zoe grows, her physical demands grow and travelling with her is getting more difficult.  We will keep doing it because Zoe deserves to travel and have fun like any other child.  But it is sad that we can't just take the children to the beach (it was right there!) and just play.  We never even found the time to get Zoe in her walker (her giant walker we brought along in our very packed van).

On the hottest day Zoe and Willow were getting overheated by the late afternoon so we decided to go out for dinner.  Forget cooking and camp clean up, lets just go to town and enjoy the air conditioning.

Dinner was lovely.  I ate one handed while breastfeeding Willow and Gavin fed Zoe.  Ailsa enjoyed eating the ice out of her water while beating us at tic-tac-toe (how does she win so often?!)

There was an older couple sitting behind me.  When they got up to leave, the man came over to Gavin and handed him money and said something like, "Please take this from me.  Thank you so much for bringing your daughter out to the restaurant."  He smiled at all three girls and told us we have a beautiful family.

Gavin and I were touched by this strangers' generosity.  He could not have known what a difficult day we were having and how alone this often makes us feel.

Thank you random stranger for your kindness.  It means a lot to us.  We will add you to our long mental list of people who have shown us such kindness.

We are lucky in this life.

And yes- we do have a beautiful family.

 Early morning in the tent.  
No matter where we put Zoe and Ailsa to bed in the tent they always manage to find each other in the night and end up side by side in the morning.

 Lake Ontario is so large and there was so much wind that it sounded like waves in the ocean.  The sound was very soothing but also loud!  We would definitely go back to this campsite again.  It was beautiful.

 This photo is from a trip earlier this month.  We went to Grandma Sheena's for three nights.  We did a canoe ride with four of us (Zoe, Ailsa, Gavin and myself) and then each girl got to go for a ride by themselves with daddy.  Zoe loved stretching out on the bottom of the canoe.

Zoe enjoys the moment floating in Grandma's hot tub.  She is so proud of herself for being able to "swim" on her own now.  As always, her laid back attitude and joy grounds us.

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