Catching Up

Tonight is my last night before I start a new MBA class, and I said I would make a new post before I started so here I go. It's been a very busy and hectic break, just in the last week or two does it seem like any rest occurred. November and December were extremely busy. I'll highlight some of my favorite recent, and one not so recent events:

Culvers: This is not so recent. On the way back from Appleton in December we stopped by Culvers for lunch. We washed our hands and got Bea settled into a high chair while I was ordering food for all of us. I was at the counter and turned around to see Bea and Melissa sitting all the way across the restaurant within eye sight, and when Bea saw me she started yelling "Matt! Matt! Maaaaaatttttt!" as loud as she could. See when we were in Appleton Melissa was changing Bea in a seperate room and to get attention she yelled "Matt!". Thus now Bea yells "Matt" when I'm far away and needs to get my attention.

After I returned with the food at Culvers I was cutting up Bea's vegetables and somehow Bea had managed to reach across the table and steal a couple of fries under my arm without me looking at it, and we've rarely given her fries before. Very sneaky...and smart. After polishing off our food we needed to burn energy for the rest of the 2 1/2 hour ride home, so we started to walk around the restaurant. A recent fun game is to put our hands together behind our backs and waddle like a duck while going "quack, quack, quack..". Bea did quacked as loud as she could and waddled as much as she could with me back and forth the restaurant for several minutes, at least, to the amusement of many.

Zoo: Two weekends ago we went to the indoor section of the zoo for the first time. We have a family pass and saw the tropic (warm animal) and aquatic exhibits. Bea was extremely happy and loved everything, with the freedom to run around and look at stuff (that is meant to be touched by toddlers so there were limited "no's"). By the time we finished the tropics she was pretty wore out and the aquatic sections went quicker as we needed to hustle her home for food and a nap. Her favorite animal may have been a simple duck. They were doing a lot of paddling and diving for food. Melissa and I thoroughly enjoyed it all.

Zoo 2: The past weekend we went to the zoo with Bea's cousin Sadie (and my sister and brother-in-law). Bea and Sadie had a great time. Similarly to the first zoo visit, one if the favorite things (maybe better then the animals) was a little tunnel/cave about 38 inches tall that they went in and out of and played for a solid 10 minutes with many other toddlers about 30-34 inches in height, it was very amusing for all.

Edinborough Park: Nearby is a large indoor play area/park with trees, etc. There is a four story climbing and slide area for the kids. There's also a much smaller toddler section to climb on with a slide. We've gone there twice in the last month. Bea can do well on the toddler slide but it's not easy to climb up on. I then took he on the smallest intermediate slide with me (about 10 feet tall and 40 feet long). We did that many times. On the second trip without Melissa, I could tell Bea really wanted to do the slide by herself, and since it wasn't very slippery like the first time I used my instinct and gave her a push. I followed right behind her. She LOVED it. At the very end she was a little scared then stopped at the end of the slide and when I came down she giggled histerically then ran as fast as she could to the beginning of the slide - which is a lot of work for both of us. There is a lot of climbing up and around things to get to the first level. After about 7 more times we were both tired and Bea had to give up as she couldn't crawl up anymore.

Then we made our way to a large gym area with lots of BALLS and little carts that spin around. Bea enjoyed the "BALLS" the most and also stacking the cones (like road construction cones) and pushing the cones around because she saw another kid do it. She also likes to grab whatever ball, toy comes rolling her way and abandoning her current toy. So while pushing the cones on a cart a ball rolled away from another kid and Bea immediately stopped and grabbed that ball. The other kid without missing a beat grabbed the cart and cruised off. You should have seen the look at Bea's face. It was puzzlement, anger, confusion, embarassment... I laughed and told her that's what happens when you try to scam other kids toys, it happens to you back.