Big Boy Bike

Last week, a neighbor very generously gave Malcolm a real big boy bike.  Her husband had bought it for their grandson, but he was too big for it.  I'm not sure why they didn't try to return it, but we are very grateful.  Malcolm is absolutely thrilled with it, and it is a much nicer bike than we probably would have bought him.  He asks regularly if he can get out his "big boy bike" then rides it around and around the driveway until one of us can walk with him down the sidewalk.  While he is riding, he can usually be found grinning like mad and saying things like, "I love having a big boy bike," or "I like being so big."  So very cute.

The first time we took it for a test ride, I had to push him to get him started and he had a little trouble always peddling in a forward motion. The brakes are coaster brakes, so the bike stops pretty suddenly if he goes backwards, and it took a little practice to learn how to keep that from happening. By the time we were about two houses down, he was doing great. It won't be long before I'm unable to catch him. I promised that if he got good at riding that maybe we could take his bike to the bike trail and he could ride with mommy and daddy.

The pictures aren't the best, but for now they are all we have.

Hey, look!  I finally got a video to upload!  Again, not the best quality, but you can see how well he is doing and how excited he is.  We had the bike about 2 days when I took this.

Cemetery Walk

We have about two weeks with almost no scheduled activities, so I'm getting a little creative in filling up our days.  If they are free, all the better.  We drive by an old cemetery almost every day and Malcolm has been asking questions about it for several months.  As strange as it sounds, I have been promising to take them there for a long, long time, but keep forgetting.  So, with nothing else on the schedule, off to the cemetery we went!  Surprisingly, it was a very nice morning out with the kids.  We all got some fresh air and exercise (though I did have to tell Malcolm that he shouldn't run around crazy; at least he asked first) and it was very peaceful.


I brought paper and crayons and taught Malcolm how to do crayon rubbings on the tombstones. I helped him at first, but he got the hang of it really quickly and was doing some all by himself.

He found the ones with big letters to be the easiest, and he could pick out his favorite letters to make copies of.

Dorothy also gave it a try.

After we finished doing our rubbings, we went for a walk to look at all of the different grave markers. I swear it isn't as morbid as it sounds. Malcolm really liked touching the different headstones and feeling the difference between the old, rough ones and the newer, polished ones. He had a definite preference for the older stones that were very worn down where the top of the stone was white and he could see the crystals.

This is not as cute as it looks.  Malcolm is actually trying to pull her along and keep her from going towards the major road.  I had said that we needed to stay toward the back of the cemetery so Dorothy wouldn't wander into the road, and he took it to heart.  They are no where near the road, but he was still trying to pull her away.  She fell down just after I snapped this.

There are a wide variety of sizes and shapes of markers at this cemetery.

At the far end of the cemetery, was a small mausoleum which both kids found fascinating. Dorothy liked climbing up and down the steps (her favorite activity). Malcolm wanted to go inside, and I think he thought it was similar to a little play house and wasn't really understanding when I showed him that this was what a family used to bury their loved ones.

Peeking in the mausoleum.  This one only has 6 spaces.

Dorothy on the mausoleum steps.

This would have been such a cute picture if they would have held still for two seconds.

Climbing over a small rock wall.

We found out several years ago that the town's tombstone maker (carver?) lived in our house about 100 years ago. When we moved in, there was a tombstone propped up against the garage and when we dug up some pavers in the yard, we discovered that they were partially carved tombstones. We also dug up a tape measure from the Bedford, Indiana limestone quarry when working on our yard. I wondered how many of the headstones we saw today were made by the person who used to live in our house.


One marker in particular caught my eye and made me very reflective. It was a series of 5 stones, all connected. On closer inspection I saw that it was for a couple who lost 5 of their children as young babies. You can see the ages and dates on the markers, and the names of the children are carved on top.



Their names, from left to right, were: Ester, George, Olevia, Abby, and Louisa. I am so very grateful to live in a time where loosing so many children so young is almost unheard of. I can't imagine how awful it must have been for those parents to have to go through that over and over again and I felt very blessed to be there visiting with my two children.

On the way home, we stopped in the pet store and looked at all of the animals.  Malcolm liked the mice the best, probably because they were the most active.  Dorothy like the doggies (some sort of terrier) that were there getting groomed.   I wanted to swing through Starbucks on the way home and get a drink for myself, but realized that the stroller I had brought did not have a cup holder.  Sigh.  So, we just went home and had a nice lunch. 

Morton Arboretum

Yesterday, we met one of Malcolm's friends from school at the Morton Arboretum.  The arboretum is one of those places that we rarely go, then wonder why we aren't there every week.  It is just beautiful and their children's garden is top notch.

As we headed out the door, I noticed that it was a bit overcast. By the time we were pulling out of the driveway, it was sprinkling. Once we hit the interstate (about 5-10 minutes), it was raining, and after being on the interstate for about a minute, it was a downpour, complete with lots of thunder and lightning. By the time we were as far as where my husband works, I decided that this was ridiculous, not to mention dangerous, and took the next exit. My husband called just then to tell me that they were getting all sorts of severe storm warnings. Once I found a safe place to park, I called the other mom to find out where they were and what the weather was like. They were already at the arboretum and were sitting in their car, and she said it looked like it was starting to let up. I checked a forecast that went in 15 minute intervals, and we decide to push on ahead and go. I'm so glad we did, because the kids had an absolute blast.

I was still raining a little on and off when we got there, so we went for a little walk and looked at the trees and some of the art installations. Malcolm and his friend were walking ahead of us and they were so cute walking along the path chatting. I couldn't hear what they were talking about, but they were having quite the conversation.

There is a hedge maze, and in the center is a tree with a spiral staircase around it and a platform at the top so that you can look down at the maze. We made it to the center of the maze quickly, and the boys went up the stairs to look down. I stayed down below with Dorothy who was in the stroller.

The boys, looking out from the top.

Malcolm, coming down the stairs around the tree.

We moved on to the children's garden area where the kids had lots of fun climbing and playing with the different water features. Dorothy wanted to immerse herself, but there is no swimming allowed.

She loved playing with this frog water fountain and got very wet.

Crawling through a giant acorn.

There are several water pumps around the children's garden, and Malcolm really loved trying to work them, but he wasn't always strong enough. Sometimes he needed help.









Here is another water pump that he and his friend are doing together. The water flows into a trough and can go either way and flow down a series of stair-step troughs. There are little barriers that the kids can move to force the water to flow different ways.



The boys got the water flowing, and Dorothy took it upon herself to climb up into the troughs. (I did take her down right after taking the picture.)




There are a couple of ponds and streams that the kids can either wade in or use the stepping stones to cross. The last time we were here, Malcolm and I caught tadpoles in this one. We looked, but didn't see any tadpoles or frogs this time.

Concentrating on staying on the rocks.

There is also a tree house area with rope ladders and bridges and forts built around several trees. Last year, he was too small to do this by himself and daddy had to help him. He did just great this time.




We had lunch at the cafe there which was very good, then went back to play some more. We didn't leave until almost an hour and a half past nap time and both kids were completely wiped out. Poor Dorothy is still recuperating today.

Baby, It's Hot Outside

It has been about a million degrees this week and we are doing our best to keep cool.  The kids had one more week of swimming this week and I was very happy to be in the water with Dorothy instead of up on the deck with no shade with the parents of older kids.  I didn't think that I would get any photos of the kids in their swimming lessons since I am in with Dorothy.  This session, Malcolm is in class with a little sister of one of the boys from his preschool class.  The mom stays on deck and usually sits near where their class is, so I asked her if she would be willing to take some pictures for me.  She was happy to do it, and after class, I found out that she is a photographer.  So, not only did I get pictures of them swimming, but she took some really good ones! Malcolm loves his swimming class and it shows. I think he was grinning in just about every picture.


Practicing his kicking.



Practicing their arm movements. It is possible that he is mixing up his swimming arms and dancing arms.



He's still not 100% comfortable floating on his back, but it is getting better.



He does much better on his front.



The mom took lots of photos of his face that were great and this was one of my favorites.



She took a few of Miss Dorothy too.





It was still hot today, so Kevin took the kids outside to play in the sprinkler while I made some dinner.


They loved putting the beach ball over the spray of water.






The basketball was more more Dorothy's size.



She was not afraid of the water at all.



Both kids got very wet and stayed nice and cool.

Deicke Park

At the end of the school year, Malcolm's class had a picnic at Deicke Park.  They rented a shelter near the big kid playground and the super giant slide.  It was nice, but I was curious about the play area on the other side of the park I caught a glimpse of on our way in.  One of his teachers highly recommended it, so I checked for information about it online.  All of the reviews were spectacular, and I'm adding my vote to the list.  What a fun place for toddlers and preschoolers!

We had plans to meet our neighbors there the Monday after Father's Day, but their plans changed at the last minute. We still planned to go, but when we woke up that morning, it was rainy and yucky, so we didn't go either. Take two went much better, even though we were late meeting our neighbors there. It was just one of those mornings.

There is so much for little ones to do here, and it is fenced in, which is a huge bonus. I was able to keep a close eye on Dorothy without worrying too much about what Malcolm was doing. There are lots of benches and bench style swings for parents and I hope to be able to use them once Dorothy is a little older and doesn't need to be followed quite so closely.

The park is divided into sections: sand play, train, fire, basketball, school, swings, pretend buildings, and music. Music is in the center of the play area with the others forming a circle around the outside. The sidewalks are concrete, but the play areas are the rubber mats, which were nice for Dorothy. None of the play structures are very high, so there isn't much to fall from, though she was doing her best.



Malcolm plays in the sand. He loved this table where he could pour sand though openings. He also assisted some older kids who were digging a deep hole and filled buckets and brought them water. I'm not sure they really needed any water, but he was very proud to be helping.



This is the train area with the fire truck behind it. Malcolm spent a large chunk of time pushing the red button on the train crossing to make the lights and sound go, then would run back to the train, shout, "All aboard!" He would then stand at the top of the slide and yell, "Time tunnel! Time tunnel! Hold on to your hats!" Yes, he loves Dinosaur Train.

I tried to get a video of him, but failed miserably.

We didn't use the basketball area, but I thought it looked really neat.



This is Dorothy's determined face. She is climbing on and off of the bench on the school bus. She did it over and over, for quite a while.



Surprisingly, there were no baby swings at the play ground.  There were regular sling swings for bigger kids, and two swing chairs for the physically disabled. The safety straps for these seats are missing, so I had to watch her closely and only let her swing a little bit. The whole park is handicap accessible.



There are three pretend buildings, including this dairy, a barber shop, and a house.



Malcolm, peaking out of the house.



There is a chalk board in the school area (the rest of the school area is behind me). In front of the chalk board is the music area.



Wide shot of the music area. Both kids really liked these panels with the metal balls in them. When they turned the dial, the balls would move up to the top, then fall down through the different paths making rain-like noises.

I didn't realize until we were about to leave that the music notes on the ground make noise when you jump on them. The red post in the middle is a speaker. On the left side of the picture are the drums and maracas. One the right are the bells and whistles.








Dorothy and her little friend, Rowan, sitting on a spring platform. Heavier kids can make it wobble and bounce.



Dorothy insisted on a long snack break. She finally started walking around on her own after I gave in and let her carry around her baggie of Cheerios.

All in all, it was a great day at a great park and we will be going back to play there again.  I have a few videos, and if I can ever get them to upload, I will add them.