Surprise. Disgust. Relief.

We took the entire brood the playground yesterday.

I'm accustomed to seeing a throng of mildly misbehaving kids with one frazzled almost-adult. I'm not used to a toddler accompanied by an entourage of four adults - two parents and a set of grandparents. There were two such baby rockstars at the playground yesterday, tiny walkers followed closely by two people and watched hawkishly by two more. Bump and I snorted derisively at the excess while being wildly envious of the kid-to-grownup ratio.

The grandparent-types fawned over our children, nodding their approval over our fertility, and making sure the parent-types made note of our situation. You could see the grumbled complaints of "That couple on the playground had three kids. You could have three kids too, ya know" forming in their mouths.

We pointed out a secluded section of the playground for smaller kids - perfect for their royal charges - and eventually the toddler play area had two children under two and eight adults fenced inside.

Bump packed pretzels and sippy cups for the stroller ride back. As we neared the house, Lumpyhead asked his father "Will you take this? I'm not going to eat it."

Bump stopped the stroller, expecting to collect unwanted pretzels.

Lumpyhead handed him a huge booger.