That meant that I had no camera to capture the architectural marvels of this Toronto gem, or to take a picture of the boys, looking all swag in their matching vests and baseball caps, playing on their urban jungle gym. (They really enjoyed the TRL, by the way, and wanted to stay much longer and explore!)
And finally, it meant we missed the alarm I had set to remind myself to pick up some rice crackers on the way home. Darn.
Then, on Sunday, Alex and I didn't end up going to church because I was buried under a stack of marking that I had been too exhausted to plow into on Friday night, and which I didn't get through on Saturday…
Having confidently announced that he was ready to travel on his own, Simon had set out with Tatsy earlier that morning to take two buses to his rock-climbing class. Tats got him on the first of two buses, then biked up to the next transfer, where she ensured that he made it safely onto the second bus, before riding back home for about an hour until it was time to go pick Simon up again.
Just as she was about to leave to pick him up about 45 minutes later, the door open, and in walked a rather frazzled-looking Simon!
Having drifted off into a daydream, Simon had suddenly been startled into thinking that he may have missed his stop. He had then quickly gotten off the bus and had started to walk back in the direction of home, only to realize that in fact we had not missed the stop after all.
At this point, he claimed, he was no longer quite sure where rock-climbing class was, or how long it might take him to walk there. He also knew that the Queensway bus was very slow on Sundays, and he was very certain of where home was, so… He simply started walking home!
On route, he began his contingency planning… His biggest concern was getting home before Tatsy left to pick him up from class. He imagined the horror of her showing up at rock-climbing, only to be told that no Simon had arrived for class! He also assumed that Alex and I would be gone to church by then, therefore he had already planned in his mind to email us from his iPad, knowing that I could take charge from there, making any necessary phone calls, for example to the rock climbing place.
Simon's one quandary, he said, was what to do if he arrived home and mommy's phone was at home, indicating that I had forgotten to bring it with me (as had happened yesterday during our adventure to the Toronto reference library! ) How, then, would he get in touch with us, to let me know that he was alright?
He imagined the possibility of a police phone call and a full-blown search, and how freaked out everyone would be… And so he had decided that in such an instance, he would email dad once he got home, and if there was no response from his father, he would either walk or take the streetcar over there!
After a short break and a hearty lunch, we decided to break with the "things we didn't do this weekend" theme, packed our bathing suits, and headed off to the new Regent Park aquatic complex. I'm afraid, though, that I do need to add one more thing to the list of what I didn't do this weekend, and that is finish all the marking I had planned to!