August Field Trips

This month, the cooler evenings made me panic and I began to feel summer slipping away, so we tried to leech everything out of the remaining bright and sunny days with a few field trips peppered throughout the month.  Boden is so much fun to hang out with right now and so interested in learning new things, that it's really great to be with him and enjoy his boyish silliness.  The one thing that does make me a little crazy, though, is the "are we there, yet?" question that starts shortly after we pull out of our driveway!!

MN Landscape Arboretum

 The Arboretum has an awesome exhibit in their child learning center area this year.  It's all about embracing outdoor play and using things like sticks, water, trees, pinecones and such to cultivate imaginary play and adventure.  We spent hours there the other day having a GREAT time.  Todd's hoping to create something like the pipe system in the above picture and put a similar structure in our yard so Boden can do lots of "work" with drains and water. 

Cheerios Dig at General Mills Company Picnic

 This is Boden's second year in the Cheerios dig--he was successful this year in retrieving a few Big G cereal logoed toys.  His friend Henry is right next to him in the red shirt.  Henry's mom and I had a good laugh listening to the boys and their silly conversaions--"Are you riding the bus? Yea.  Do you want to sit next to me?  Yea, that would be so cool.  That is cool.  Mom, he's going to sit next to me on the bus." and then lots of boyish giggling.  The company picnic also had a petting zoo, a bouncy castle, ice cream sandwiches, and a gymnastics course, but the best thing was riding the bus to and from the parking lot.

Boden and Henry enjoying some treats at the zoo

Boden taking on the dinosaur at the zoo

We went to the MN Zoo with Henry, his mom, and his little brother.  The two pre-schoolers kept us running and our main goal was to get to the dinorsaur exhibit before the wheels fell off the cart.  En route we saw the penguins, monkeys, bears, see otters, tigers, buffalo and such and then made our way through a prehistoric path littered with dinosaur scenes.  After the dinosaur walk, we went to the playground area, where Jill and I took turns keeping an eye on the wild pre-schoolers or standing in the shade with Jill's 4 month old son. 

We also went to the Uptown Art Fair earlier this month--one of my most favorite "things to do" in the Cities in the summer and, because Boden was so awesome, we also added in the Loring Park Art Fair which is the same day, where we had lunch from a food truck.  We considered making our way to the Powderhorn Art Fair, too, but didn't want to press our luck!  Next year, we may try for the Art Fair trifecta, but this year, I was content to have hit two and have such a great time meandering through the crowds (last year, Boden was hella crazy and kept jumping out of his stroller to run into artist tents--I was sure we'd be paying thousands in broken art pieces!).  Summer ain't over and we're considering heading to the State Fair--Lord help us!

Heh heh, watch this!

Boden loves to play with his food. Luckily, we have dogs who enjoy cleaning up after him cuz this trick loses it's charm after the fifteenth or so time. But it sure makes him chuckle which of course makes me chuckle.

Little Rebel

We've been working on the word "no" and what it means with Boden. It used to mean "turn and smile and continue doing what I'm doing"; now it means "jut my chin out, stick out my bottom lip, and continue doing what I'm doing". On the positive side, we're making progress, I guess--but it seems to be in the wrong direction.

This blatant defiance just seems so uncharacteristic for someone who is supposedly completely malleable at this age. He should be putty in my hands--do what I say; trust that I know best! The first time Boden stuck his lip out, locked eyes with me and proceeded to feed Bueller his banana soaked Cheerio after I told him no, my jaw dropped open. He's too young to reason, he was not into being re-directed into a more positive action, and he clearly knew what he was doing. So, what's my option? I can't give him a time out or have a discussion with him--well, I did try that (Bueller doesn't need organic bananas. He has dog food. This food is for Boden. Are you all done?). But it was followed by another handful of food passed off to a drooly, eagerly waiting Bueller.

What if Boden is a born rebel? Today it's feeding the dogs from his high chair, tomorrow he'll be stealing cars. I can't even place blame on the "wrong crowd" he's been running with. We are his "crowd"...though there is that 3 year old at daycare that seems to have a mean streak. I'll have to have a talk with the daycare lady about that.

Playing IN your food is fun, too.

Working for General Mills has it's perks--like giant vats of Cheerios for your kid to play in. We took Boden to the company picnic really for the sole purpose of dropping him into the Cheerios Dig.

Boden met up with his friend Henry and they attacked the Cheerios together...but with different reactions. Henry screamed and was, for some reason, angry with the Cheerios. Boden was thoughtful, at first, then began rolling around and diving into the o's with gusto. I think the goal was to score some toys that were "hidden" under the cereal, but Boden just grabbed Cheerios and, apparently, stuffed them down his pants, because he continued to drop o's from his being for the next hour or so.

The key is to be one of the first to this event--the less "used" Cheerios your kid encounters, the better.