Saturday is our “work” day in our family: it’s our day to get our household chores and errands done that don’t easily get done during the week. We sweep, do laundry and lately, we unpack and get organized, but hopefully not for too much longer. We usually start after breakfast with a trip to the grocery store. Typically, we all go together, or occasionally, Dan will go with one of the kids while I get some things done around the house with the other one.
Today, we had two errands to run: we had to go to the grocery store and to the drug store (because here, everything is separated into specialty stores — grocery stores aren’t “one stop” shopping like they are in the US). We decided to divide the effort: Dan took Liam to the grocery store down the block, and Benjamin and I headed to the drug store (which is just over 1 km from our apartment).
We had the best time. It was the first time I’ve been out, since we’ve been here, with just one of the boys. It is a completely different thing to only have one to focus on. Benjamin and I were walking, so I didn’t even have a stroller (imagine that!). We walked along, holding hands, and talked about the things we saw. Benjamin told me all about the kinds of cars he was seeing, and we worked on the German words for the colors. We saw some people working in one of the parks (cleaning up and such) and we came upon some flowers (which were labelled as a “guerrilla gardening” project). We took our time, and we really enjoyed ourselves.
When we got to the store, he pushed the cart and helped me look for our purchases, and helped me put them in the cart when we found them. He drove the cart to the checkout and helped me load everything into my bag when we were finished. We each brought a backpack, but since his was full of his toys already, I carried all of our purchases. Since our walk was fairly long, and our shopping was pretty heavy, we opted to take the Strassenbahn (streetcar) back, and it brought us all the way to the top of our street.
It was so much fun. We’re going to try to do that every Saturday — divide the outings, but also divide the kids. I had the best time being one-on-one with Benjamin today. He is such a great kid, and although I’m aware of that all the time, it was really nice to have an hour or so to focus just on him. That was my favorite part of today.