Zoo days

Of all the things kids learn to do, learning to hug has got to be the best. Jacob has been wrapping his little arms tight around my neck quite a bit the last few days, and the result is that he ends up getting to stay up far later than he should be up because I can't bear to pry him off me and lay him down in his bed. Hugs are awesome.

So is spring at the zoo, in the days before the sun and heat become oppressive. Jacob and I met Autumn, Greg, and Asa there back at the beginning of May. I put him in the backpack because I need to carry his lunch (which ruled out the Ergo carrier) and because the stroller is so low to the ground that I end up pulling him out of it to see the animals and inevitably, after the initial out, he stiffens up into the baby back bend, fully rejecting being put back in the stroller. This means I carry him and push the stroller. The backpack seemed like a good alternative, but sadly, I was wrong. It's set to Eric's height, and I don't know how to change that so when I stood up straight with it ou, it pulled me over backwards. I had to lean slightly forward the whole time to stay upright, and my shoulders and back were killing me within minutes. Next time we'll take the stroller, and he can just walk beside it if he doesn't want to ride. Sure it takes longer to get around, but it's not like we need an agenda at the zoo. That's the beauty of having a membership to these places; you can go and spend an hour hanging out with the goats and then come home and not stress out about getting your money's worth. Of course, these days, I've learned to not worry about getting my money's worth anywhere. Kids have limits. You do what you can, and when they've had enough, you leave, and if it really rocked and there was more you wanted to do, you just go back another day.

We paused for a photo op in front of the elephants.

Baby Asa's first visit to the Maryland Zoo! I'm sure he'll remember it for years to come.

We went back as a family a couple weeks later to celebrate Julia's 5th birthday. After the party we spent a fair amount of time with the goats.

The gift bag had these glasses with a fake nose which Hannah wore for 3 days straight. Best accessory ever.

Daddy love!

Spring at the tulip garden

Since I've been slacking even more than usual, and since I have photos from roughly 62 different visits to Sherwood Gardens this spring, I'm rolling it all up into one flower-ful post that will be heavy on pictures and light on words, because if I don't have to log on to my computer to work in the evening, I don't want to log on at all. I'd much rather do anything else than sit here with my computer on my lap. If I only there were a way to think blog posts into existence....

This next trio is the first of two offenses in which I obnoxiously post 87 pictures that are virtually the same because I can't choose a favorite. I hate it when people do that, especially since it's always obvious to me (when looking at other people's photos) which one is the best and which others really didn't need to be shared. Feel free to tell me which of these is the best because I can't make up my mind. I love the smile in the second one but Hannah's dress in the background throws it off...so maybe it's the first or third?

These were taken a different day, a day in which I cut feet off of the kids in the first 20 or so frames for some regrettable reason. I'll only bore you with one of those, and I'm only doing it because I think it's quite funny that Hannah is trying to physically force Jacob to look at me and take a good picture.

We met Kylie there on this particular day so I snapped a few friend shots to add to the album. These two have known each other since birth, and it's fun to look back on some of those early photos of them.

This is the second of the two offenses in which I share 87 pictures that are virtually the same. I think the third one is my favorite in this sequence. Eric likes the last one best. I shared the second because that scrunched up face is one he makes a lot and one I've been meaning to capture for posterity.

This turned out to be a pretty Jacob-heavy post...I think I've been trying overcompensate for my lack of blogging since his birth. Hannah's first few years have far more coverage, so I try to take more pictures of him, but I don't seem to post any more often so I'm not sure that method is making up for anything.

We made it over to see the tulips a lot this spring, which is rare for us, and we enjoyed every visit but least of all the first one (not pictured) because it was colder than we were dressed for and because Jacob kept crawling over top of our sushi picnic. I think the time we went with Autumn and Greg (the first few pictures in the tree) was my favorite because it rained on our way over so everyone cleared out before we got there. Since my blanket has a waterproof bottom, the wet grass was a non-issue. The kids slipped off their shoes and ran around barefoot in between bites of the Indian carry-out we'd brought with us. Now that the tulips are dead and the bulbs dug up, the rest of our visits this year will probably be similarly quiet and peaceful.

Montessori chickens!

The upper elementary kids have four chickens on campus that we've been visiting pretty much daily.

They are let out of the coop in the afternoons, and since Hannah is out at noon on Fridays, we've started a new Friday ritual in which we picnic with the chickens. Of course, this involves far more chicken chasing than picnicking. At first I worried about keeping the kids' fingers away from the bird beaks, but then one nibbled my toe, and since it just felt like a little pinch, I figured no big deal. Jacob has been nibbled a few times at this point, and he acknowledges the nibble with a "what the heck" face that fades pretty quickly.(I caught a nibble on video. Fair warning: it's another terribly shot vertical video.)

After watching a few of the big kids pick up the birds, Hannah wanted to give it a go. She picked one and followed it around for a long time, waiting for that perfect moment when she was close enough and brave enough to pick it up. After that she was a natural and just walked around picking them up at leisure.

There is also a new family of adorable foxes living on the other side of the fence. Yes, convenient location for them. Potentially inconvenient for the chickens....

 

I love Hannah's school. We end up hanging out for an extra hour or more after I pick her up every day because the campus is so beautiful, and this amazing weather makes it hard to come home to this yard-less city row home. We want to be outside as much as possible right now, and since Jacob hates getting in his car seat and often requires an arm bar to get buckled, I try to avoid getting in and out of the car multiple trips. Anyway, he spends enough time in the car just taking Hannah to and from school, so there's no reason to add a destination to the trip. Fortunately, Hannah can't get enough of her school; even after being there all day, I still end up pulling her away kicking and screaming when it's time to come home and make dinner. I seriously love that she spends so much of her time in such an awesome environment and that she gets a daily respite from the concrete jungle.

The baby walks

I'm interrupting my normal stream of backlogged posts to provide an update that is less than a week old: Jacob is walking. April 30 was the magical day that he went from taking one or two tentative and wobbly steps propelled primarily by momentum to taking about 10 steps. Every day since then, he has added steps and lost some wobble. I've tried a kabillion times to get video, but I always hit record either too late or too early and since I don't know how to edit video (and really don't feel like learning at this juncture in my life when I already have enough to obsess over), I end up scrapping the ones where I start too early. I did get a short clip on day three of walking that misses the first few steps but is better than nothing. You can watch it here if you are so inclined. Fair warning: like all my videos, it's really the kind of video that only grandparents and aunties would be even remotely interested in.

Speaking of boring videos, I have been uploading quite a few of them to my channel lately. A couple months ago, we were watching all the baby Hannah videos and realizing that there was a big gap in videos and that Jacob's baby years were all but lost, so I started to ramp up my game a bit. My only lament is that cell phone video cameras take horizontal video. Vertical video really sucks.

On the hunt for eggs

An egg hunt is pretty much just a more elaborate game of hide-and-seek, one that eliminates the need for large people to squish themselves into small places and then stay there until small people find them. If, like me, you have a super small person, then the super small person has to hide with the large person and quickly gives away the hiding spot to the slightly larger small person. This is not a bad thing as it lessens the time spent crunched up uncomfortably. Still, I'd much rather hide eggs and follow the small person around the house as she locates them.

We went big this year with both an indoor and an outdoor egg hunt. I had bought an absurd amount of eggs and stuffed them with random items I picked up at the craft store like jewels that are flat on one end and can be glued down, jingle bells, small plastic animals, and coins from Eric's non-piggy bank. I put close to 30 eggs in a plastic bag to be hidden outside and hid at least 15 all around the house. Hannah knew about the outdoor hunt, but the indoor hunt was a surprise.

She ran around the house excitedly collecting eggs and even pointed out some to Jacob to help him grasp the concept.

When they were all collected, she got to work inspecting her booty and organizing it Montessori-style into separate bowls which Jacob continuously knocked over and then thrashed around to make sure that each little jingle bell and jewel scattered far and wide. He is an excellent destroyer.

My dad and Sondra showed up around 10 bearing Jacob's birthday gift, and after enjoying it for a bit, we all went around back to meet our friends and commence egg hunt number two. The park in the alley behind our house is where we sledded a lot this winter. We had never thought to use it for an egg hunt, but fortunately a neighbor without kids shared her genius idea, and those of us with kids were all over it. There's not much there other than some grass, but that's pretty much all that's needed for an egg hunt. We rallied together with three other families with homes backing to that alley, all of whom have daughters around Hannah's age. Parents from each family hid the eggs around 10, and then the kids went crazy at 10:30. They aren't terribly visible in this shot, but I wanted to share a group action shot of the four of them spreading out to cover more territory.

Jacob found a few too.

Running was the means of movement to each new egg as soon as it was spotted. I wish we were all like kids and just took off running at the drop of a hat. At what point do we stop running excitedly everywhere we go? 

I couldn't pick my favorite posed group shot, but it's one of these two.

More post-egg hunt booty inspecting commenced while the parents mingled and enjoyed the amazing weather and the awesomeness of our neighborhood, specifically because of the people who live here.

 Having so many people around meant extra hands to snap family photos.

After the egg hunt we went to the bookstore where the kids each picked a book that the grandparents bought them. They're wanting this to be their new Easter tradition in lieu of giving the kids an Easter basket full of stuff I don't approve of and end up sending to work with Eric, and it's an idea I couldn't be happier with! Hannah picked out this hysterical book called Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. It's pretty rad. Jacob picked Goodnight Spot, a lift-the-flap book. Brandy bought him Where's Spot for Christmas, and he loves it, so that warrants starting a collection.

Later we walked down to The Charmery for ice cream, which pretty much iced the cake of an awesome spring day.