A Walk in North

Tryn, Berlin and I went on a little walk this afternoon. After we walked to the park and played for awhile we took a little stroll around the neighborhood. This is something that, for me, takes a little courage to do the first time each spring, mainly because I have had all winter to re-grow my anxiety about living in North - really because I am not an outdoorsy winter type person. Here are some things that happened:

* On the way to the park Tryn noticed, "Mom! The floor is so sparkly!!" This was mainly because of shattered glass littering the sidewalk.

* After we left the park we took a walk down a street where we had never walked before. There were three men sitting outside one house, one of them asked me where I lived. I did not feel inclined to tell him. I just said, "Oh, a few blocks that way," pointing in the opposite direction.

* There was a dog twice the size of Berlin sitting behind a fence, she wanted to, "Pet the cute puppy!" I had to tell her no, that puppy didn't want to be touched. She wanted to know why. "Just because," I told her.

* There was a bright blue tarp running along the fence of someone's back yard and we couldn't see what was on the other side. Tryn said, "That looks like fun! We should go in there!" I told her no, we should probably not ever go in there.

* When we got back to our intersection the same two men who had been sitting at the park where now standing across the street, right where we needed to walk, just standing there. We decided to extend our walk an extra two blocks and go a different route.

* Just before we got home Tryn and Berlin found the first dandelions of the year. Tryn was super excited when she saw a group of kids playing a house away from ours, she wanted to give one of them her dandelion. They were all boys bigger than her. She gave one of the boys the dandelion anyway and he all he said was, "Thank you!" Whew, thank goodness.