The Great Outdoors

When I got home from work yesterday Braden and I took advantage of the warmer weather and went outside to play. He has always loved to be outside and yesterday was no different. It's a lot of fun to watch a two year old play. Their brains come up with all kinds of things to do. That's in stark contrast to my brain which usually says sit on the couch and watch TV.

So yesterday Braden provided me with his own special brand of therapy. It's base concept is go outside and have some fun. Run. Laugh. Play.

Look at all the fun things my little buddy did yesterday while we enjoyed our time outdoors.

• Braden raced Otter for his fetching stick yelling, "I get it!" On the rare occasion that Braden got if first he would throw the stick and say to Otter, "You get it!"
• He hopped from one stepping stone to another saying, "Ribbit" with every hop.
• Of course he rolled around on the ground just for the sake of getting dirty.
• We hit a few baseballs off the tee. You know spring training has already started. It's time to start working on his swing.
• He jumped on his mini trampoline banging into the walls as much as possible and constantly telling me to open and close the door by saying, "Zip up!"
• He climbed on top of the dog houses a half dozen times.
• He threw rocks through the fence.
• And my favorite one of all, when the wind blew he would run around with his hands in the air yelling, "I blow way! I blow way!"

Leslie Knope is a Genius

It seems lately when the question is asked if I want to do something with Braden my answer is always, "Let's go to the park."  I don't really know why this proclivity for park visitation has arisen. I never was a regular park attendee as a child.  Of course the park that we had at the time was a couple run down swings and a lot of trees surrounding a softball field for the local beer league games.

I don't love the parks system as much as Leslie Knope or anything, but I do think that parks are pretty cool. She is right about that. 

I think maybe the reason for my new found love of the parks system is two fold. The most obvious reason is that Braden LOVES to be outside. He regularly drags me or Arica to the door by the finger and points to the handle.  He wants to be in the great wide open. The walls of our house are apparently too confining for him despite the fact that he has an embarrassing amount of riches in there to keep him occupied.

The second reason is that it is really difficult to take him outside at our house. We live at the foot of a mountain. Our front hard is very steep making it difficult for Braden to roam about.  We also have only a small piece of property which doesn't provide sufficient space for our little explorer.  It takes about 5 seconds for him to get out into the street.  The back yard is better, but there are two gigantic dogs and a fence. Braden doesn't really mind the dogs, but again he isn't much on boundaries.

The park solves these problems. It is big and relatively flat.  Braden can roam around for as long as he likes.  He swings and slides occasionally, but the biggest draw for him is the ability to walk and walk and walk without someone scooping him up and ruining his fun.

We have to be careful what days we take him though because he has pretty bad tree pollen allergies. If you have never been to Arkansas in the Spring then you might not know how we are affected by tree pollen in this great state. For a couple months our entire world has a yellow haze too it. All surfaces are covered with yellow dust. All puddles of water look like a runny watered down pools of cheese dip.  Pollen is everywhere.

Because of the pollen invasion we try to keep Braden inside on windy days. Otherwise he coughs and sneezes for a week or two. 

When we actually get to the park it looks something like this.

There is climbing...

and  walking...

and playing with sweet gum balls...

and lots of smiling.

No Hitting

Arica and I watched the nursery kids at our church last night during the weekly bible study classes. This is not our normal role, but there was an emergency and my dear wife stepped in to help. Basically she watched the nursery kids, and I did my best to keep up.

We had a 3 year old boy, a 4 year old girl, and Braden. Dealing with other people's kids is not my specialty. I am still learning how to deal with my own nearly one year old. I have not reached the 3 or 4 year old stage yet. Unlike my wife I was not born with any innate parenting skills. I, like many men, have to survive with a learn as you go strategy. Our adventure last night allowed me to learn a few things first hand.

I learned that little girls are quite bossy. Our girl spent most of the night saying that's mine.

I learned that kids around the age of 3 and 4 apparently don't like babies. The phrase of the night was "no baby." I would prefer the Austin Powers inspired "Yeah baby!", but that was not to be.

I felt sorry for Braden. All he wanted to do was play with the other kids. He sometimes tries to grab toys from the other kids, but that is expected from a baby. More importantly he doesn't fuss when you correct him. He never cries when the other kids take things from him either. I think he likes to share. He is very sociable and just wants some attention from the bigger kids. I was very proud of him. He played nice as always. Apparently "no baby" doesn't have an affect on Braden.

The final thing I learned is that I can actually see another kid hit my child without violently throwing said kid through the window. I am proud of myself for that one.

Braden had a toy and was shaking it around and yelling. He tried to show it to the bigger boy and accidentally hit the kid in the eye. I stopped him, and immediately apologized to the other kid. He went on and on about how the baby hit him. Then when I let my guard down he smacked Braden in the head with his hand. I grabbed his hand and instructed him that we don't hit. I tried for several minutes to explain that Braden was a baby and he didn't mean to hit him. I might as well have been explaining the fundamentals of Calculus to this kid. After he decided I was not going to ring the bell for round two he started sharing how he hit his head at his Grandma's house. I guess this qualifies as disaster averted.

During this entire time Braden kept right on playing. I guess it takes a lot more than a punch to the head to slow him down.