Like father like son

First it was the haircut, now it's the shoes.  With the warm weather creeping in on us we decided it was high time that we looked into getting Calvin a pair of summer shoes, and it didn't take him long to pick out two favorite pair from the aisles and aisles of choices (well, okay, just aisle of choices - there aren't that many kids' shoes).  The first pair (pictured) he thought looked just like daddy's, the second pair just like mommy's.  This is an equal opportunity shoe family.  Of course, daddy's shoes don't sport the stylish velcro.

The new haircut

I didn't think it possible for him to look any more like Jon.  I was wrong.

Little helper

When we moved into this house a year ago Calvin was still too short to reach the bathroom sink by himself, even with the aid of a step stool.  But kids grow, and they also become desirous of independence, so last week (and when I say last week I truly mean throughout all of the week, but that's another story) Jon replaced the hard to maneuver single knob style faucet in our downstairs bathroom so that Calvin could easily wash his hands all by himself.  Calvin was over the moon about this new measure of selfdom.  This morning, while I was tidying the kitchen a bit, he called to me from the other room to say that he wanted his diaper changed and that he was "all ready for me."  And if I wondered what that could possibly mean as I stopped my chore to go join him, my wonder turned to terror as I rounded the corner to find a trail of liquid from the bathroom to the play room.  I could only begin to imagine what that fluid could possibly be, but my terror turned to inner laughter when I found him in the play room, clean diaper in one hand, and a number of dripping wet wipes in the other hand.  My little helper.  He truly was ready for me to change his diaper, and I must have missed the sound of the running water in the bathroom while I was running in the kitchen.  Something that I have found to be true is that with that sense of independence comes a desire to help in ways that only a toddler can, an observation that is a great source of pride and happiness for me (even when my work increases tenfold because of it).

Zoo season is now open

Saturday was a zoo day.  How could it not be?  With temperatures nearing 70 and a bright spring sun gracing the our part of the world there was no place we would have rather been.  This was our first visit of the year, hence the "opening of zoo season" for our family, but it reminded us of how things have truly changed.  In years past, as in during the last three or so years B.C., there wasn't really any such thing as a "zoo season."  Jon and I would visit zoos all year long, enjoying such festivities as Oktober Fest at the Binder Park Zoo, Christmas Lights in Toledo, and Valentines at the Detroit zoo (our personal favorite).  We found quite often that the best times to be there were early in the spring when the temperatures didn't reach above the 50s and most normal families (is that what we are now?) were still at home basking in the heat of their furnaces.  It was always a strange dichotomy to spend our day hiking through our favorite zoo areas and our evening toasting S'mores by a fire in our own living room, but it was a highly enjoyable kind of strange.  So we might miss the freedom of subjecting ourselves to near certain frostbite temperatures just to see the Tigers enjoy the cold in earnest play, but sharing the zoo with Calvin is preferable by far.  So zoo visiting now has its appropriate season, but that just means we have to cram more into the fewer months in which we have to enjoy it.  And we are excited to say that said zoo season is now open.  Lucky you guys.  Now you'll get to see pictures of things like tigers and aardvarks instead of just Calvin.

It's ahhh weather time

Yesterday was the perfect ahhh weather - not to hot, not to cold - and today promises more of the same.  This is it, then!  I'm sure there will be more cold snaps, but this is the short few weeks of spring that we'll see before hot and humid sets in.  Enjoy.