Blog Block

I am having a hard time thinking of anything to blog about today, but it has been more than a week since I did my last post, and I still have the goal to try and blog once a week.  I love going back and looking at my blog books and reading about the little things the kids were doing that didn't seem very important at the time, but that are so fun to look back on one or two years down the road.  So, with that in mind this post doesn't have any earth-shattering insights or anything, but it is just my attempt to capture a tiny bit of this moment of my kids' childhood.

It has been spring break this week, and I have trying to keep the kids (and myself) entertained.  We have been swimming at the pool (where Cora thinks she is invincible with her floaties on her arms), and there has been lots of playing outside.  Yesterday I had plans to take the kids to the zoo since we have our annual pass.  Apparently, the parents of every other kid in the state had the same idea.  The zoo parking lot was completely full and there was not a free parking space within half a mile of the zoo entrance.  There were swarms of people crawling all around the ticket booths, so we high tailed it out of there and headed down the road to Liberty Park.  The kids were sad, but I promised them we would come back soon on a day when not every kid in the state is out of school. 

Once at the park, we unpacked our picnic lunch, laid out a blanket, and me and Cora had a great time watching Dax and Arden waddle around and quack like ducks in an attempt to make some friends:

Even though Dax was flapping his arms like wings and yelling "QWACK!" at the top of his lungs, somehow the birds didn't buy it and kept running away from him.  

Soon he gave up the quacking and just started chasing the birds around.  Kid is lucky he escaped without any beak marks (and I am lucky he escaped without falling in that nasty pond).  I told him to leave the birds alone at eat his lunch, but he kept is eyes on those birds and jumped up and ran if he thought any of them got within range.  I asked him what he would do if he caught one, and he said "Eat it."  Oh, of course.



When we came to the park, I had been planning on taking the kids to the aviary as a substitute for the zoo, but they said they just wanted to go to the playground.  Easy enough (and free).  The playground there was smaller than I remembered, but the kids had fun playing with the musical toys they had there.  They had quite a little jam session:

Finally it was time to head back to the car.  It was quite a walk, and soon I was carrying Corbie, who even though she is approaching three years old, doesn't believe in walking any long distances.  We stopped on the way to look through the fence at some parrots at the aviary for a minute, and when I turned back around, Daxton was gone. 

He was nowhere. 

After about 3.2 seconds I started to panic because all of those stories that you hear about Liberty Park and the weirdos that sometimes hang out there start flashing through my mind.  My heart is not beating and my stomach is twisting into a knot, but then I notice Arden staring off into the distance. "Arden, where's DAX?!?" I screech.  "Over there, chasing the gooses," she casually states.  And there is my boy, in full sprint, clearing the ducks and geese from the shore of the pond.  He is like 50 yards away at least.  I take a breath in the first time in what seems like forever.  I can't believe how far away he got so fast!  He is way out of range of my calls to come back, so I send Arden running after him (Arden is such a good big sister, what would I do without her?). 

Little stinker!  I have never been so happy to see him doing something naughty in my whole life.  He got a big hug and a big timeout as soon as I caught up to him.