David, Michele and … Piper

This is a picture of Pip’s first trip to the Dallas Zoo. Notice there aren’t any animals in the picture? See those bright pink cheeks? Summer is here! We only saw a couple of animals in the stifling heat before having to navigate to the children’s stream where littles and bigs alike can frolic and refresh their sweaty limbs. Upon arrival, Piper couldn’t get in the water fast enough and ended up just sitting down at the base of the stream for a few long minutes. Being stationary for even a brief moment speaks volumes when we’re talking about Little Miss On-The-Go. After tiring of the water, a lot of drama ensued and we finally ended up heading home. I wish I had gotten a picture of her in the stroller with the paci in her mouth and her cold, wet towel on her head as we were leaving. Quiet and content for the first time since our arrival an hour and a half earlier.  Poor little thing had a rough go of it today.

It’s difficult to see in this picture, but there’s a red mark with a blue ring around it on Piper’s left arm. It’s the bug bite that she snagged on Monday. It looked totally normal yesterday but was really swollen when she woke up this morning, so David drew a ring around it with his pen in order to track its progress. She has been sleeping a lot the past two days and has been extra feisty with no other symptoms, so I’m blaming the bug bite for every hiccup in the day because I am otherwise unable to explain it. The fun part is that she quickly points to the spot on her arm when asked where her bug bite is. On the drive to the zoo, I also caught her in the rearview mirror looking at the bite saying, “buh bye”. There was a lot of cheering from the driver at that point. I couldn’t be more amazed at her recent verbal development. I find myself continually shocked at the things she understands despite her inability to put words to them. She is amazing.

We will definitely give the zoo another try, but we might need to wait until the fall! Meanwhile, I might start shopping for pool memberships…

I think the title says it all.

As I’ve stated before, I love Play Group. I also love Thursdays because Play Group happens on Thursdays, the maid comes every other Thursday (we would probably eat rice and beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner before we gave up this HUGE luxury) and Date Night happens on Thursday nights. So I get a break from cleaning, a date with my husband and some great fellowship with great women, all in one day! If you ever need me to do you a favor, ask me on a Thursday because I tend to feel freed up and refreshed on Thursdays. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that most of my blog postings happen on Thursdays, but I haven’t reviewed that to confirm it. Knock yourself out if you’re bored.

Okay, back to Play Group. We have a couple of dynamos in our group who keep us organized and scheduled, which has helped to foster a really sweet commitment from the group itself, and most moms try to be there every week if at all humanly possible. Sidebar: I was very happy to relinquish all calendar-related items to other people–I don’t miss that about my pre-Pip job! So each month we meet twice at someone’s house (rotating out, though I’ve somehow managed to only host once so far???) and the other two times we have a planned outing–like a trip to the park or the Arboretum… or Owen’s Farm! Which is where we went two weeks ago. Yes, I’m a little bit behind.

We started out in the parking lot, waiting. Some of us are better waiters than others. Marshall is a happy waiter:

Egan is a tired but patient waiter:

Jake is a very quiet and content waiter:

Zane is a delightful waiter:

Thanks to the pacifier that Daddy hates, Piper is being a good waiter. In this moment:

Then there’s Mia. Get a load of this face:

Okay, okay. She wasn’t really very upset but the face is priceless!

After all that waiting, we made our way over to the billy goats where we were given little plastic cups full of feed. This was my favorite part of the outing because the goats were cute (except for one ridiculous and rude big guy who threw his weight around and knocked the smaller goats out of the way to get their feed) and there’s something very maternally satisfying about feeding another living thing. Unless we’re talking about our cats who are currently driving me crazy because it’s almost time to eat.

This little guy is SO cute, don’t you think? I love how the goats just pop up over the edge of the fence to eat:

This is Kora and Caleb, gettin’ their feed on:

This is Whitney and Egan. I think Egan might be sampling the goat feed, but I can’t be sure. At this age, one cannot be certain of anything when it comes to hands and the mouth:

Here’s Casey (our great organizer) and Marshall, taking a step back from the feeding process:

Kora and Caleb again:

Kristen and Jake:

Pip and the Paci checking out the goats through the fence:

Pip after losing all interest in the goats, now exploring for treasures. Current treasures = 1 deflated, red, heart-shaped balloon and 2 large pieces of gravel:

Kristen and Jake with Jennifer and Mia (despite the heat, our fashion diva, Jennifer, wore her jeans, boots and a white shirt and outfitted Mia in a little red handkerchief print–very impressive):

This is Lily and Paola. They win the award for Longest Distance Traveled each week. They live a good 30 or 40 minutes’ drive from the rest of us and still make it to most events.

The next part of the trip was a hayride tour around the farm, which the kids seemed to enjoy. I couldn’t understand a thing that our tour guide was saying, so I didn’t know about the baby geese that had recently hatched until I read Whitney’s blog and realized that I missed some big stuff on the trip. There were also long horns and horses and what not. And some sort of Giraffe Horse or something–again, I couldn’t hear very much. Here are some hayride shots…

Egan:

Caleb:

Mia:

Zane:

Oodles of little angels, one of which did not particularly like the feeling of hay on her backside. Who can blame her? Daddy, don’t look at the paci. We were in desperate need of a nap. I HAD to let her have it if we were going to finish the tour…

Here they all are at the end of the hayride (our tour guide was impressed with our slowness):

I love the look on Lily’s face in this shot–so sweet!

We then toured all the buildings on the farm and had a picnic lunch. Piper and I ate quickly and then hauled our little goat-loving tails homeward for a nap. Both of us were tired, but only one of us napped.

We love Play Group!

Summer is officially here. The temperature right now is 92 degrees. Anticipating the heat, I bought some sandbox toys for our next trip to Heights Park. The shovel is a little big so it’s hanging out in the backyard and will not be going to the park with us. Pipsqueak decided to carry it around for awhile the other day, even though it is almost bigger than she is.

Yay, shovel!

Who me? What?

The tongue is required in moments of intense concentration:

The lighting is “off” in this photo (and most of the others–still haven’t made time to read the manual), but I love the expression on Pip’s face.

One very easy, cheap and entertaining “toy” is the box of clothespins on the back patio. They see a lot of use in a week, and I find clips all over the place. I was amazed at Piper a few weeks ago because she was able to carry about 15 pins from the box on one side of the patio to the inside of a cat carrier sitting on top of a box on the other side of the patio. And she moved them one by one. That’s a lot of focus and concentration by someone her age, in a world of so many distractions!

To date, this is my favorite picture ever taken of Piper. I don’t think I need to explain myself.

Also taken on the same day… My two hunnies! One has a devilish look in her eyes while the other holds a little angel in his lap:

I love this photo of David but am sad that ‘Lil Bit isn’t looking:

I tried to buy a pool at Toys R Us a couple of weeks ago but they ran out of the one I wanted. I’m not sure what we’re going to do for water fun in the backyard when it gets even hotter this summer, but I got out the hose with the light sprinkle attachment the other night after Piper’s dinner and she went nuts! She. Loves. Water!

If it all works out, we are also taking swimming lessons in July with some of the Play Group moms/babies, so stay tuned! Perhaps Mom will learn a thing or two about swimming while we’re there…

When my Aunt Linda came to babysit last week, she put her sunglasses on the Little One who had just finished her dinner. At first, she just froze in place for a few seconds, wondering what was on her head and why, and then she started trying to yank them off. We laughed pretty hard.

The end.