Remember When ↠ l.p.

Family outing

"What do you two want to do today?" I ask Tessie and Cailyn as I clean up the dishes from breakfast. And by clean, I mean rinse and let the dish washer do the rest of the work. It's the weekend and I think we're all hoping to do something fun together now that we're all home and have some free time to ourselves. I can't help but feel like it's reckless, was this the one day that could mean the most? Taking today off might mean we lose the hours we needed to finally find something on Hector. But Liam and I talked and decided it would be best to have a day to rest and gather ourselves together for the coming week. Plus, it'll be incredibly nice to just spend and entire day together as a family.

"I wanna go see a lion," Cailyn announces with a smile, meaning that she wants to visit the zoo again. "and I want ice cream too." 

I start the dishwasher and lean on the counter, reaching over to grab a pad of paper. "Fine, that sounds doable." I say as I write down what Cailyn wants to do. "What about you?" I ask Tessie, my pen paused above the paper. 

"I'm don't know." She says quietly.

"Anything at all," I prompt her. "Or maybe somewhere you want to go for lunch?"

At that suggestion her face lights up. "Can we go to the sandwich shop?" She asks, grabbing my hand and jumping up and down in excitement. 

"Of course!" I tell her, happy to have found something to do that she's picked. Over the next thirty minutes everyone showers or gets dressed and ready for our family excursion. 

The trip itself is short, the zoo being less than an hour away and where we get lunch and dessert more or less directly between the apartment and the zoo. But we end up spending the majority of the day at the zoo to appease Cailyn who could probably live at the zoo and never get bored. She told us about all sorts of facts that she's been learning from books and animal shows. She knew that a group of lions is called a pride and that zebras are almost always in herds so they can confuse their predators with all the stripes mixing together. And the fun fact that a group of zebras are actually called a dazzle, something I hadn't heard before. 

We were all impressed with Cailyn skills and the rest of us had fun watching how excited she got and looking at the different animals.  There was an area where you could pet farm animals and both the girls enjoyed it. We stayed there at least an hour so they could pet all the animals and spend a little time with their favorites. Tessie, however, wouldn't pet one of the goats who kept head-butting the others. 

"It's being a meanie to the others," she whispered to me away from Cailyn, who had no problem with petting the rambunctious goat. "So I don't want to be nice to it."

"That's how they play though, he's not really hurting them." I remind her, but she stood steadfast and refused to pet him. We left a little hot and tired, the girls fell asleep in the car ride home, but happy.

Cailyn drowsily stumbles along side me, following me inside the apartment when we get home as I carry a still half asleep Tessie to their room. I tuck them into bed, pulling off shoes and placing them beside their beds. I close the door behind me and glance down the hallway to where Liam is still standing in the doorway.

"Is that the mail?" I walk towards Liam who is holding a large packet of papers and several regular looking envelopes beneath it. "What is that?" I ask as I peer over his shoulder, my eyes darting over the papers he's holding. My mouth goes slack when the words I'm skimming over fall into place.

"He's gotten a court date set. You're being sued for custody and asked to appear for the hearing next week." Liam says in summary after a moment of silence, my arm around his waist limply holding on as tears cloud my vision.