Time To Walk The Babies

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago, I found and purchased what I like to call, "Freedom in a box."

It is really a set of three tiny backpacks with harnesses attached masqueraded as cute little monkeys and bears that peep over the child's shoulder when they wear them.

Attached to the backpack is a tail for each critter, so that you can safely "Walk" your baby...in theory.

The other day, the weather and the temperature were all in agreement, so my eldest and I broke out the "Freedom in a box" and managed to wrangle all three of the babies into their harnesses.

Vivienne was quite upset with us, because she wanted to love on hers, not wear it. She eventually allowed us to strap her in, though, after seeing her brothers sporting their new look.

They were all three very cute. Then I realized that there wasn't any way to tighten the front harness, really.

I worried that it might be too loose and my escape artist, Kai, might make a run for it if he figured this out.

Bregon promised to help keep a keen eye on everyone, so we headed outside anyways.

Somehow, we managed to get down to the sidewalk in front of the house. Kian wanted to stop and put the leaves on the porch into the flower pots along the way.

Kaiden wanted to try his hand at scaling the bushes that line our front walk.

Vivienne was taking tiny baby girl steps, trying to be as cautious as possible of every crack and seam in the concrete.

Finally, they were all three lined up on the sidewalk, somehow. Bregon took Vivienne's tail, and I had both of the boy's.

The leashes do not come equipped with a start button, however, as we soon discovered.

The kids just stood there, watching Bregon and I expectantly, waiting for us to do SOMETHING.

So, I started walking to see what would happen. Kaiden figured it out pretty quickly.

Kian, however, didn't take to it as well. Part of his problem is that pesky "Agador syndrome" thing that happens whenever he is wearing shoes.

He always takes a few steps, then trips and falls down. This walk was to be no different than his attempts at running around the house in his shoes.

Kian must have fallen a zillion times. He did take it well, and did enjoy playing in every pile of leaves that we ran across.

Kaiden decided to give tree-hugging a try. No, I didn't teach him this at all, he just took it upon himself to give it a whirl.

Suddenly, I found ourselves at the end of the street. I looked back, only to find that Vivienne and Bregon were not fairing quite as well as we were.

She was still baby-stepping her way down the street, taking her very sweet little time. They were about a half block behind us!

Bregon finally just plucked her up, and carried her so that they could catch up.

We bravely turned on to Line avenue. I wrapped the tails of the leashes around my hand to shorten the lee-way, and encouraged the babies to walk on the grass away from the street as my Granddaddy had done for me so many years ago.

I needn't have worried much, because they weren't going ANYWHERE! Both of the boys were mesmerized by the traffic.

Kaiden just stood there saying, "OOOOhhh, a CAR!!!!" He did this each time a car would pass us, which was about three every second!

Kian saw a red truck parked at the end of the street, and decided that he wanted a closer look, and took off.

I found myself in the middle of a knot involving a little traffic watching boy, and a little boy who only wanted to check out a red truck and was huffing it to get there!

I did the untangle dance, and Kaiden realized that Kian was headed towards a really super cool truck, so he finally relented and began to trot as well to keep up.

Amazingly, Vivienne and Bregon did better and were keeping up as well!

Along the way, we met a few neighbors, including the lady with whom we share custody of my kitty.

We had a short visit with her, and I just KNOW that she had to have been thinking, "Gee, I know why your kitty moved into my house," with all my babies tying knots with their tails around me while we chatted.

I unknotted my babies, and headed towards Kian's big red truck destination.

We literally had to stop so that both of the boys could ooh and aaahh over all of its big red truck glory.

That was when the dog walker passed us on the other side of the street. There really isn't much difference between us, really.

Well, I do think that the doggies were acting better, and much more agreeable as to which direction their dog walker should lead them.

I had to shrug off my comparison, though, as Kaiden decided to ford this oversized concrete gutter and Kian managed to trip and fall and scrape his chin on completely flat concrete.

I helped Kaiden over his hurdle, and scooped Kian up off of the ground. Everyone was okay, it's just that Kian didn't know it yet!

We somehow made it home. It was weird, though. People driving by would stop, and tell me how adorable my children are in the middle of traffic.

I worried about someone having a wreck from doing this. That would be positively awful!

Once we made it to our own yard, the babies began to cry because they didn't want to go inside.

Unfortunately, we had to go in and have some dinner and get ready for bedtime! I had managed to wear out the babies walking them like that!

Overall, I suppose my "Freedom in a box" does work to a point. It's kind of scary, though, walking your babies as if they were puppies!