A Trip to the Park

Though Silas is not quite old enough to use park equipment yet, he and I enjoy going to the park for a change of scenery. Plus, he likes to try to climb on everything when there's no one around.

We headed out to the park on a cool Thursday, Silas dressed up warmly in his adorable fox printed sweater onesie and me in double sweatshirts and fuzzy socks. I had forgotten that Thursday is homeschool meeting day at the park; the normally empty playground was overrun by boys and girls of all ages.

Silas was in baby heaven! Right when we got out of the car, he saw kids on the baseball field playing kickball. He pointed, "Football! Football!"

"Not quite, baby," I said, putting him down on the sidewalk. He ran up to the fence and watched in awe as one boy kicked the ball through a puddle and another ran after it, tossing the ball back towards first base.

The next twenty minutes were spent with Silas walking around the park, looking at everyone and everything. He picked up various sticks, comparing each new one against the two he was currently carrying and discarding appropriately. He found a little pink bouncy ball and tried to kick it, but kept missing due to its small size. He found no less than six scraps of garbage and insisted on picking up each one to throw out, except for the airheads wrapper. He wanted to chew on that one and was a little bit upset that I threw it out for him.

At some point, a person walked by with their dog. Silas alternated between shouting "dog" and freezing in place, too excited to actually go up to the dog, which admittedly was about three times bigger than our tiny pups. Eventually he made it to the dog and gave her a few tentative pats, complete with giant smiles.

Then he was off to watch another bout of kickball, followed by jaunts towards the puddle (while saying "no puddle, no puddle") and attempts to reach the sand ("no sand, no sand"). Can you guess what I was telling him every time he got too close to either?

Eventually, Silas ran into a little girl about his age. She was toddling around in her warm pajamas and Silas lit up when he saw a baby so close in age. He started by making a peace offering, giving her the stick that he had deemed worthy of being held almost all afternoon. She grinned and took the stick.

"Leaf!" Silas said as he handed the little girl the fistful of leaves he had picked up a few minutes ago.

She took the leaves and gave them to her mom, then turned back to Silas.

Silas starting picking up leaves from the ground, presenting each one to the little girl with an enthusiastic, "Leaf! Leaf!" The little girl happily took each leaf, handing them one at a time to her mom. Every fifth leaf or so, her mom would toss a handful of leaves back onto the ground. Our kids were clearly stuck in a leaf loop, which was broken only when the little girl's older sibling came by to say that another kid needed help with his shoes. Then they were off towards the other equipment.

After that, Silas wandered around a bit more, but he was beginning to slow down and people were starting to set up tables and whatnot and I figured we'd get out of the way for now. We headed back to the car, Silas holding on tightly to a handful of leaves. Another successful park day.