I'm afraid that I'm starting to sound like a broken record, constantly talking about our walks.  But, in the heat of the summer, when you're trying to save money on gas, the highlights of the day are our walks and our dips in the little pool in the backyard.  At least, normally, those are our highlights.  On Monday, our walk was actually the low point of the day....

You know how they say that walking is the safest sport, that you should walk if you have any injuries because it's low impact and the risk for getting hurt is minimal, almost non-existent?  Well, that is not necessarily the case if you're almost two years old and you insist on getting in the stroller and out of the stroller and in the stroller and out of the stroller over and over and over again.  We have a double jogging stroller and I like that it's easy for the girls to get in and out of - this way they can get out and walk when they want to and ride for a little bit when they get tired.  Abigail, however, tends to use it for her personal moving jungle gym, climbing all over it, standing up when she's riding, trying to ride holding on to nothing but the sun visor.  On Monday, we'd walked less than a block and she was riding.  She started hollering, "Wak!  Wak!  Wak!" (her word for walk).  So, I slowed the stroller down to let her climb out.  As she was doing that, her feet evidently got tangled around the end of the stroller and she stumbled, falling out.  Now, she's done this a few times before and always caught her balance before her face hit the concrete, but this time she wasn't so lucky.  She landed, nose-first, on the asphalt of the street.  She scraped her knee and her hand, and there were a few scrapes on her forehead, but her little nose took the brunt of the fall.  I quickly scooped her up and checked her for anything that might warrant a trip to the doctor.  She was crying and her nose was bleeding a little bit, but at the same time, she was trying to scoop up the mini Ritz peanut butter crackers that she dropped when she fell.  I took that as a good sign.  I asked her if she wanted to keep walking or go home and she said, "Guu Huum!"  so, I put her in the stroller and we headed back.  Gracie walked beside her and held her hand, cooing to her, "Don't worry, baby!  It's going to be okay baby!  Don't worry, big sister's here..."  I was so touched by her concern for her sister!  Then, she turned to me and said, "Mama, I wish I had a sister who didn't have bleed all over her face!"  Okay, so much for the concern...

We got home and I washed her nose off and she was ready to go swimming, so other than looking a little banged up, she seems fine.  I just wanted to warn you that walking is not exactly the safe exercise that it's cracked up to be

Here she is yesterday morning - I couldn't convince her to take her thumb out of her mouth, so you can see the full nose, but you get the picture:


Yesterday morning, she was raring to go for another walk, so we headed out again, with much better results this time (well, except for the man in the van who backed into the stroller because we apparently didn't get out of his way fast enough, but none of us were hurt, and the stroller seems fine, so I'm counting our walk as a success).  We found a huge oak tree with low-hanging limbs that seemed to be, at least partially, in a public right-of-way.  Okay, I'm probably stretching that;  in all likelihood, we were tresspassing again.  But, the tree was so pretty and the girls wanted to sit in it, and I had my camera.....
Here they are both sitting in it...Abigail like the idea of the tree, but wasn't too thrilled with the reality of it.


And this picture may be favorite one for the month.  It's pretty much a rarity that I love a picture that I took - I tend to be very critical of the shots I take, but I love this one, mostly because I can see my big girl's personality shining through....


I hope you have a great day!