What’s a lion say?

Move along

Nothing to see here. Just a baby in a Speedo mowing the yard.

So we went to the zoo today

Going to the zoo is not the story. We go to the zoo all the time. Mitchell has his preferred animals and routes. But what IS news is that this time I found the summer bounce house the zoo has. I ran into someone we went to story time with, and Mitchell played in the bounce house with them. He loved it, of course. Then her older kid wanted to go on the giant climbing ship and slide. Mitchell followed, of course, and I let him go in there, thinking there was no way he’d actually climb it. The walls are high enough that you can’t really see inside, though, and a few minutes later I get a glimpse of this.

I may have freaked out a bit. But I played it cool and ran to the other side to coax him down. A grandmother was standing there trying to get her school-aged child to quit climbing up the slide, and she felt the need to say, “He seems a bit young for this.” I admitted I wouldn’t have let him in if I’d thought he’d climb it, to which she answered, “I’d think not.” I wanted to point out to her that her school-aged grandchild was currently climbing over the side of the ship, so she might want to spend a little less time commenting on my parenting skills, but instead I just held my breath while my child slid down and out of my sight.

He did it several times in a row, so by the end I was no longer nervous. But holy cow, he looked so small up there!

This is his victory stance. In case you can’t tell, this is my child, rocking a farmer’s tan, I’m a sleeveless shirt, and if you look closely, you can see the mullet. He’s representin’.

Mitchell was here

Learning to spot the signs yet?

Big help!

The quickest way to get Mitchell inside is to have him help you do something, whether it’s find the dogs, open the door, or, my personal favorite, carry the groceries. He has to take plenty of breaks along the way, and meanwhile I’m carrying a rather large load of groceries at a toddler’s pace, but hey, it’s adorable.

What do you mean it’s hot?

My child, who’s been throwing pretty much a solid temper tantrum since he woke up almost two hours ago, decided he needed to wear a jacket to go outside. THIS jacket. Even though it’s almost 75 degrees already. But, you know what, if that’s what it takes to get him out the door and temper tantrum free, he can rock coveralls for all I care!

This picture also shows one of his favorite chores: putting the mower away. The “real” mower gets put in the garage after use, and his toys all get put up if it’s going to storm, so for one of those reasons, Mitchell has decided that every five minutes, he needs to put his mower away.

Mitchell has been here

Can you tell?

Look what I found!

If you look very, very closely, you’ll see a terrified worm in his hands. After he put it on the pot, he spent the next ten minutes looking for it again. Given the sheer number of birds in our backyard, I’m guessing this worm’s days are numbered. Which is sad, some it survived and escaped Mitchell.

Time to gain a little weight, kid!

New sunglasses

Mommy needed new sunglasses today because mine have permanent baby fingerprints on them. So it should come as no surprise that Mitchell had to make sure the possible new ones looked good on him, too.