August and I accompanied Carly out at 8:30 this morning, taking out the recycling. Instead of heading back inside, we spent the next 90 minutes exploring the area and the park.
We started by walking around the building, then I let him decide where to go next. There are a couple of ‘baba’ lights (the red lights that turn on when a car is coming around the corner) in the parking lot of the pink building and we ended up there since the lot was empty. Usually, we couldn’t get too close to them.
We then went across the street to the park. We went to the ‘mama’ statue and then to the fake stream area. We went in the empty stream area (boo, drought), and played with the rocks. We then went to the other end to the little bridge where he had thrown rocks before. We loaded up on rocks, and he found a discarded paper cup to play with. He played on the bridge, then eventually we moved on to the exercise equipment area, cup and a couple rocks still in hand.
There he played with the exercise equipment. He even managed to climb up on his own on the one that swings side to side.
From there we headed to the middle of the park and played in the faucets, then up and over the little walkway to the playground. Here he found a nice stick that he kept hitting on the ground. Here too we had our only negative feedback, from a woman on an exercise machine who was upset he wasn’t wearing shoes (most of our trip had been in vacant areas of the park, but we had seen three or four other women along the way who were just fine).
We then walked around the north end of the park and came back to the playground, where we went on the swings for a few minutes.
We got home at 9. We played Endless Alphabet and had a good laugh using our noses to move the letters around. He took an hour-long nap starting a little before noon. He woke up tired, however, and was still drowsing on my shoulder when Carly got home a little before 1.
In the evening we all went for a walk up the stream. We tried to go to the new coffee place on the second floor across the stream, but it was closed. Instead, Carly got an iced latte at the cafe in the women’s business center, then we walked up to and around Madeul Stadium. We ended up at the water faucets.
August had a blast playing in the water. We quickly stripped him down to his diaper. He played with his ball, a shovel, and Carly’s empty plastic coffee cup and straw. The only bad moment was when he walked around the large set of faucets and hit a slippery spot. His legs slid out from beneath him and he fell on his back. Scary, but he bounced back pretty quickly.
He was getting tired on the way home, and fell asleep right at 7.
Morning exploring:
Home:
Evening walk:
Discovering clouds for the first time:
