The Park!!!!

A window of sunshine (and wind) opened, and we leaped out and ran for the park. Of course, I'm writing this on a dull, cold, gray spring day, but let's dwell on the past instead.

This video is of Ben's second (technically the third, but I highly doubt he remembers going down the slide attached to daddy's chest when he was 4 or 5 months old) trip to the park. We forgot to bring the camera the day before, which is too bad because he was really, really loud. He had a blast, and was not afraid to let the neighborhood know!

After we stopped filming, he climbed the steps, like usual, but instead of waiting for me to help him slide down the straight, short slide, he just crouched down like he was looking under the bed, put his arms out and slide down himself! Beth barely had time to get to the bottom to catch him. It was awesome. =)

There was another little girl there too, probably between 16 months and 2 years old judging from her vocabulary, and as soon as she climbed up Ben started chasing after her and babbling (abwabwabwabwa). Her mom told her not to be afraid (she was), and told her to give him a hug (she didn't). Ben went for her face, as he's prone to do, but instead I turned it into a high five, so it all turned out ok in the end.

The little girl had been going down the slide on her butt, like most responsible parents teach their children, but when she saw Ben barreling down both the little slide and the big slide face first, she wanted to give it a shot. It was a disaster. She couldn't figure out how to get down on her belly without almost doing a somersault, so she just gave up and went down on her butt again. Ben, 1, little girl, 0. Game. Set. Match.

I can't wait till summer and I can teach Ben to hang from the basketball rim. It's gonna be sweet.

(Oh ya, I forgot, Ben and I went to Westgate Mall to walk around and I thought, as long as I'm here, might as well renew my license, so as I'm taking the eye exam, I'm holding Ben, and because my face is up against that little binocular booth thing, he takes advantage of his proximity to the counter to grab the blue stamper thing, which he of course begins to eat. Neither me, or the counter guy noticed it at first, then the guys like, hey, watch your kid! Too late of course, ben has a blue mouth for the rest of the day, that's what that one picture is with him having a blue mouth.)