Picnic Lunch

We went to the park today. The mother's in Eddie's preschool class decided to have an end of the year picnic because this is the second to last day of school. I, being a glutton for punishment said we would go. Eddie has all of 45 minutes from when she leaves one school until she needs to be at the bus stop for the next. Usually we go home, wolf down some lunch, and run out the door to catch the bus. For some reason I thought, why not go even further away from school and let her play at a park? I'm sure a five year old will know that her mother is serious when she says it is time to leave for school. She will come running and say, "Yes mother, I mustn't be late for my lessons"! That is almost what happened. We arrived at the park and all of her little friends were sitting eating their lunches. I had brought pizza and chips for her and about five seconds after they were out of the bag the gale force winds hit. Off went her food. It was flying across the playground while Eddie was running in the opposite direction screaming that it wasn't fair her lunch just flew away. She also said something about how it was in no way funny. I agreed it wasn't fair, but I did not agree that it wasn't funny. I thought it was freaking hilarious. I, dog under my arm, set off across the park to retrieve her chips and found a little boy carrying the bag. I thanked him for saving her food and brought it back to her. I said "Eddie, look that little boy saved your chips!" When she opened the bag it was filled with wood chips. She was more than slightly upset that I had "lied" to her. How was I supposed to know that the kid was packin' wood chips? All of her friends offered her their food and she refused complaining that she wanted her pizza and chips. Eventually she accepted a piece of string cheese and went off to play. I sat there for twenty minutes holding on to what was left of her lunch. It was getting close to time to go, so I put the dog and the wood chip chips in the car and went back to get Ed. Let me assure you before we went to the park I had gotten a promise that when it was time to go she would do so without argument. She lied. I told her we were leaving and she said "no" and ran off. I went after her. This time she said she wanted to show her friends a trick so I say "OK" and she disappeared again. I caught her and picked her up. As we were passing the monkey bars she said she just had to try them. This time I let her but I didn't let go of her. I had to carry her to the car so as not to lose track of her again. We finally got there and she says, "Where are we going"? Holy crap! That girl is so blond it isn't even funny. I told her we were going to school and she said "Oh yeah, I forgot". So I drove to school and as we were walking in I stopped to talk to one of the other moms. We were a few minutes late to class which, of course, became my fault because I'm the one who had to stop and talk to someone instead of taking her straight in. The drama never ends but neither does the excitement. She definitely keeps me on my toes. Now if I could just stop stepping on hers!