Jammies at 5

It's 7:46, and I've been in jammies since 5pm.  It's been a long day.  It's been raining all week and finding things to do with a toddler and no car begins to be challenging after a few days.  So here's a rundown of our day today:

After I got back from my morning shift at 8am,  Kate & Ben came to pick us up for a field trip to the Discovery Museum in Acton.  It's was pretty fun, though it quickly filled up beyond capacity with kids and parents looking to escape the neverending drizzle.  Good thing we got there right after it opened!  Here's Clem in the Water Room,  where they thoughtfully provide waterproof aprons.

                                                           And in the flashing lights room

                                                 Communing with the brontosaurus and Ben

                                                                 They provide tricycles too

                                                   Then a nature walk, with snacks of course


So off to home and naptime for both of us, then a bite of lunch.  It looks like it stopped raining, so I hook up the trailer for some outdoors adventure!  It takes longer than I think, so of course it is raining again by the time we leave, but off we go anyway, on the path to Russos.  The rain guard worked perfectly, though we need to adjust Clem's helmet more since last fall.  But it was a success! He especially enjoyed going over bumps and I heard more than a few "wheeee!"s from the back.  Clem was dry but I got pretty soaked, so it was after this point that I got into jammies, nice and dry.

                                                Then a visit with the "hiya hiya" (aka teepee)

                                                               A messy though filling dinner

                                                     And a quick cleanup before bathtime!

Climbing, part 2

The park near us is a combination dog park/playground/nature walk, so we go there a lot.  Clem loves looking at the dogs - that's where we found he's a bit allergic to dog licks - and the playground, and we like the walks, so it's great.  Here's Clem on his new circuit training - there's a kid in the background who was really crying, and my finger gets in the way, but it shows some good stuff after the first 20 seconds...

Fearless

Clem is a little heedless of risk.  Running down hills, climbing on the play structures at the playground, he's starting to do it all.  I'm waiting for the self-propelled descent from the crib, which will no doubt be uncontrolled.  His daily climb begins here, in the cool firetruck rocker Candice & Peter got him before he was born:

                 And at the playground, where he is just mastering climbing rungs onto platforms:

Also illustrated above is fearlessness of chickens, or possibly he's thinking of the association with eggs, which he thinks are delicious.  This one was AWOL at Drumlin the other day. 

Walk along the Charles

Clem loves puddles.  And mud.  We'll be out on a walk and he will be trotting along no problem, and every time I see him veer off the path I know what's coming: crazy amounts of mess.  This picture was taken after I accepted the fact that he would get messy but before it got really bad... 

We like to walk along the Charles River Greenway in Waltham and Watertown, and about a mile from our house is a grocery store with a parking lot that is a known waterfowl gathering place, with a nice safe footbridge connecting the to path.  We went there today with Ben & Kate, ostensibly to see and feed ducks (and geese, and a few assorted seagulls), but the boys were hungry, so the stale bagel Kate brought along was mostly eaten on the run.

This puddle drew Clem like a magnet.  Sometimes he wants to stomp, sometimes to touch.  Today was stomp, touch, splash, and finally splash with a stick.  Once the stick came in I resigned myself to one messy man and some seriously muddy laundry.  But he loved it, you can see all his little footprints along the Banks of St. Clement

And back onto the bridge, to rest against the rails.  I suspect they were just stuffed from all the duck bread.