Holiday Weekend

Everyone needs holiday weekends in their lives in order to bring some spice to the monotony of everyday schedules.  Of course, when you're a baby there is nothing monotonous about your every day - sure the naps are a regularly attended event, but there is so much to discover in the world that all other moments are already peppered with variety and change.  So even though Friday might have been a day of new discovery for Calvin, who found out that day how much fun it is to kick a ball around the house (do we have a soccer player?), Jon was more than happy to arrive home with the news that he'd been given Monday off - what a special treat!  And what did we plan?  Spring cleaning.  But the weather threw a wrench in our plans (the weather is another thing that knows nothing of monotony, especially in Michigan), so we spring cleaned all day Saturday while it rained and went about our usual church and music lesson schedule on Sunday, and moved our planned trip to the Detroit Zoo with Jon's parents and sister to Monday instead.  What a great choice!  Rain is perfect for spring cleaning, but not so perfect for the zoo, and vice versa with the sun that showered us with brilliantly warm rays come Memorial day.  Of course, between the good weather and the national holiday, the zoo was packed, but another bonus point for the Detroit Zoo over both Toledo and Binder is the amount of space - wide walkways and a plethora of exhibits really know how to spread out a crowd and the six of us had a great time, complete with a picnic lunch.  Calvin loved talking to, and showing off for, his aunt and grandparents.  And to our delight his interest in the animals grows with every zoo trip we take (which means that at this rate by the end of the summer he'll be trying to climb into their enclosures).  It was a great zoo trip, and we finished of our Memorial Day with a traditional summer meal - grilled hamburgers (Calvin had his mini-burger without a bun) corn on the cob, and watermelon (which Calvin LOVED), followed by a little swimming and a lot of bubbles.  Boy is it hard to return to the monotony of Tuesday.

Consequences of a toddler...

...they move a lot faster than crawlers.  That's how this happened in the amount of time it took his mom to turn around and yell at a dog, then turn back:

Techno Baby

The kid's got the moves.  Clearly he learned more about dancing than he did about love and marriage at the wedding we attended this past weekend because he came home with a new skill.  He'll dance to anything, even radio commercials, although techno (in this clip it's Propellerheads) and African rhythms are his favorite.  Check it out:

Already as tall as his dad?

Well, not quite, but he does have a new vantage point on walking trips now.  Calvin has pretty much outgrown the sling and the front carrier, and he sits in the stroller just fine, but it's hard to see the zoo animals from that position, not to mention that strollers don't do park paths very well, so we got him a backpack instead.  He loves it.  We tried this new method of travel while out for our evening walk Monday night and you'd think we'd given him a space shuttle!  He reached for every tree as it passed him by, continually poked and grabbed at his dad's hair and neck, and laughed and chatted the whole walk (a great step up from his usual zombie-like behavior when riding in the stroller).  It was clear that he could see the ducks better when we got to the pond, too.  Of course it's now cold again, but we're sure outdoor weather is just around the corner and this will definitely be our first choice for outdoor travel from now on!

May 13, 2007...

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!