Rainy Days

It seems to be raining all over the world! Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris… My kids and I have been greeted and treated to showers everywhere we’ve flown for the last three weeks.

I like storms in big cities. They slow the pace of life down in urban environments, which can feel relentless. That is why I’ve been making an effort to make a habit of walking everywhere we possibly can as a family. I’m doing that more and more now as a divorced single parent so I have more time to talk to my kids and get an idea of how they see the world by actually walking through it with them as they experience it. It’s a refreshing change from homework, the slippery slope of the Internet, and playground games that can get a little tedious for grown-ups after a while.

On our walks, I’ll ask the girls to pick out a “sight word” for our route and try to see how many times we can find “the” or “and”, simple words for beginning readers, by playing I-Spy. It’s so fun to spot a word spelled out in hissing neon flashing from a shop window sparkling with raindrops or splashed in neon letters across a poster on the side of a city bus. Hard and fast experience as a mother has taught me a mystery prize at the end is always great motivation for learning games.

Last week, we had a tie between my two girls for who spotted the most sight words. Lucky them (and me) the prize was a pair of rain boots. (Read practical item equals guilt shopping all around). We found super cool colors from a company called Hunter this super classic English company who outfits the Queen of England. I got silver, which I think is a totally unexpected and uber chic color for mommy. The kids flipped for the acid bright spring bouquet colors: the baby took lime green and my big girl took hot pink.

It was the perfect gear for our little trip from the Statue of Liberty to the Eiffel tower.
– Veronica