Landing back down

We arrived back home this afternoon after a week of travel - up to Cleveland, further north to Ontario, back to Cleveland, back home. There are many stories and great pictures from the trip, but right now we are all utterly exhausted (T was asleep by 6:15 pm!!), so a post on the trip will have to wait.

At the moment, I'm just trying to figure out something special to do tomorrow with Taran. He kept running around the house this afternoon asking for various Cleveland family members and I think tomorrow is going to be a hard day when Joe and I go back to work and he doesn't have a gaggle of family around to shower him with affection.

I just snuck down to the park with his blue bucket and pilfered some rocks by the river's edge. There is endless scope for imagination in a pile of rocks: Biggest? Littlest? Blue rock? Pink Rock? How Many? What shape? What does it remind you of?

 I threw together a couple of rock animals for Jessikah for the morning to get her creative juices flowing. Now I think I'm going to have a hard time leaving tomorrow because it would be so much more fun to stick around here with the peanut and play with rocks. I used to have a whole rock collection when I was a kid and to this day, rock hunting/collecting is one of my favorite things to do on vacation. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with pictures and second-hand retelling of the day.
 

There are a couple of great sites that I love to go to when I'm looking for fun new crafty, sensory, nature play type activities to do with Taran.

The Imagination Tree has great projects for toddlers and Nurture Store (where I got the idea for rock art) also has really fun ideas although some are geared more for older kids. Check them out when you get a chance!

Desolate Silence

Desolate Silence
'Neath the soft fur of bear pal
woeful eyes peer out

Man I wish I had placed my camera in the front seat so I could have captured Taran's expression as we passed the fifteen minute mark on the clock and he realized  he was in it for the long haul all the way to Cleveland.  Sometimes he's very vocal in his upset, but this time he was deeply quiet and resigned about the whole thing.  Every time I looked back at him he stared at me with this look like "Mama, I've been betrayed". Or maybe he was just so exhausted he couldn't muster up a happy expression. He was so excited that we were coming to see his Ye Ye and Nai Nai when we put him down last night that it took him an hour to fall asleep and then he woke up by 5:45 am. So he was cooooked.

Anyway, I think he forgave us when he got here and his cousins, Jessie and Neko were waiting for him for an all day play date.

Jessie's only two weeks older than Taran and when they were smaller, they barely acknowledged each other's existence, but in the past 6 months, they have begun to relate more and more. As for Taran's 4 year old cousin Neko....he's in love. It was so nice to get so much time with the girls and we all had so much fun. Taran loves to "hold the hand" and Jessie was pretty into it too....

until he started to careen wildly through the yard...

and down a hill...

and accidentally spun them face first into the grass at the bottom with his exuberance. He thought this was hilarious, great fun until Jessie burst into tears at which point I think he felt quite bad.

But a little goose-watching,

a couple of rounds of duck-duck-goose, and some shared enjoyment of pretend chocolate....

and everyone was happy again, if not a bit pooped out.

Nothing special, just a walk in the backyard, but it did wonders for blowing off any residual cobwebs from leg 1 of our road trip.

Tomorrow the girls are busy and we are going to just take a quiet day to spend with the grandparents and then Thursday morning it's back in the car again for the five hours up to Brantford, Ontario with the whole family for Joe's cousin's wedding. Wish us luck for the trip!