May 7

Another sunny Tuesday, another trip to the Botanical Garden for us. 

I feel like I have to take advantage of these beautiful spring days, before it gets hot and humid and I get uncomfortably pregnant and only want to wallow in a pool of mud. Also, the Children's Garden is free on Tuesdays, and my kids love it. Also, I love seeing how much things change on a weekly basis. It's amazing! So it appears that Tuesdays at the Garden are now our thing. I'm getting better at it, though: I'm realizing that it's exhausting to try to do/see everything, so I make the kids choose what they want to do.

Today, their priorities were Sassy Girl, sheep, sand, and splashing.

Done.

That would be Caleb, modeling his best Sassy Girl pose. I personally like the look of fierceness in his eyes - I hadn't thought of Sassy Girl being fierce, but it works!

(Meanwhile, Daisy is gazing into the reflecting pool. Immediately after this, she asked me if she could get in. We swiftly moved on.)

Caleb and Daisy negotiated about whether we should see the sheep or the Children's Garden next. In the end, Daisy won and we visited the sheep first. 

Seriously, how cute are these children? They kill me!

Then, on to the Children's Garden, and the all-important sand. The last time we visited, we made a counter-clockwise circuit of the Children's Garden. We came to the splash pad first, and then the kids were too wet to play in the sand. Caleb was disappointed, and didn't want to make the same mistake this time, so we took a clockwise approach today.

This girl is serious about her digging! She spent 3/4 of our sand time perched on the edge of the big sand box, but eventually consented to the removal of her shoes so that she could wiggle her toes in the sand. 

This boy just dug and dug. He was pretty happy. He was so happy, in fact, that I think he would have been content to spend the whole time digging in the sand, and I began to wonder if the drive out to the Garden was a waste of my time and I should just put in a sand box at home instead.

But then he finally noticed the splash pad in the distance, and the shrieks of joy from the children splashing there. Off we went!

This little fountain is the only part of the splash pad that interests Daisy. She literally will not play in any other part. The irony is that one must push down on the top of the fountain to make it go, and Daisy isn't strong enough to do that yet. She just has to stand around and wait for a bigger kid to do it for her, but then she's terrified of the bigger kids and doesn't want to splash if they're nearby. It's a vicious cycle, but eventually her desire to splash wins out.

But the only real splashing she does is this - putting her foot, hand, or maybe her belly under the stream of water. Funny girl.

Have I mentioned that the kids have temporary tattoos on their arms right now? They were part of Daisy's birthday gift from Grandmother, and the kids are in love with them. Daisy has a seahorse, and Caleb has a killer whale. We were just wrapping up our visit when I commented to Caleb that his killer whale was all wet, like it was splashing in the water, too.

Daisy loved that, and wanted her seahorse to splash, too. So off she went.

She was so determined to let her seahorse splash that she was willing to brave the bigger kids.

And she was so tickled when she ran back to show me! She made several more visits to the fountain to get her seahorse wet, and each time she came back to show me.

She even insisted - several times - that I take her picture. 

Goodness, I love this child!