(you can't tell so clearly from this photo, but Lucy was dressed in a truly amazingly ridiculous way, including piggy tails and a necklace she'd made herself after stumbling into the office and finding a box of craft beads...also, she's wearing a sweater dress and shoes on the wrong feet)
We visited Tyler with Kevin a few weeks ago. The kids were excited to relive a silly game they'd invented months ago, called "fishing for poopy!" in which they scooped algae from the pond with giant sticks.* Alas, the recent hurricane and heavy rains had cleared most of the good scooping algae, so the kids were stuck with the backup game of tossing anything they could find into the pond.
Thomas tried to jump in. You know how he is.
Other points of interest:
giant frogs! perfect for mounting and kissing. no princes emerged, many germs were exchanged.
beans on the tee-pee! Lucy was happy, although not for long. It seems the thrill of munching just-picked beans wanes in the face of fun treehouses on the horizon.
fairies and gnomes and trolls, oh my! There's been some fairy interest of late. I checked out a book for Lucy about fairies, much to her delight. (Our entire walk home, and a week or so after, Lucy would pick up the book and announce, "I'm learning about fairies!" I'll file this one under child-led schooling.) Hanging amid the magical habitats at the arboretum are dozens of little fairies, constructed from wooden balls, flower petals, and pipe cleaners. Lucy found a flower petal on the ground (from a fairy that didn't survive the weather), and I told her that a fairy must have left it behind for Lucy to find, so that she could make her own fairy. (Insert eyes as wide as saucers here.) Later, Lucy found a small artificial flower which she said was a "magic wand" and picked up to add to her fairy.
and, on our way out, a stop at the dress-up stage. Neither child could fully commit to a gender-specific look: Lucy was all about the fairy skirts but couldn't resist the swords, while Peter was drawn to the knight gear but also wanted to wear a tulle skirt. Decisions, decisions!
*Of particular note with this game is that they taught it to a group of school-age boys, who followed in on the fun. Never underestimate the power of older children to reinforce silly play; never underestimate the pure joy of poopy talk, either.
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