Huh?

Glad I got this shot, because this is a silly expression she makes alot, like she is saying, "Watchu talkin' about Willis?" Wow, I am dating myself. :)

Pirate Park Again

We met Angie and Otis and Xander this time! Of course it was super overcast in the morning and then ended up bright sun when we got there. It didn't seem hot enough to be overheating Akasha though, and we survived. :)

Here is the O man busy at work with Orion lurking behind.
Orion going in to push the water button. That kid in the grey shirt was kind of managing all the little ones (it was pretty crowded) and doing a great job of it for his age.
Sometimes he would physically move the younger ones instead of talking to them, but overall he was a refreshing surprise. He announced he was leaving for a short time at one point, and as he was walking away I asked if he actually liked hanging out with all those little kids, and he said yes, he was like Tom Sawyer LOL. Another mom told him how great he was with them, and he said, "Yeah, I have intuition." Seriously, that is one of the cutest things I have ever heard a kid say!


Big Brother
Little Brother
It was a really interesting day at the park. On the way up the trail, I decided to talk to Orion about conflicts since he had some issues there last time. I asked what ideas he had about when two kids want to play with the same thing. The automatic reply: "share". So we talked about the difference between sharing and taking turns. I told him the hard thing about taking turns was deciding who went first. I mentioned that you could use a game to decide and all of a sudden wondered if he was ready for Rock, Paper, Scissors. I explained the concept and showed him the hand symbols. He seemed interested but couldn't get the idea of doing it at the same time. Also when I told him to think of which thing he wanted to do but not to tell me, he kept saying which one he picked. So maybe not getting it yet....

At the park, there were so many kids all working in the sand area, and most of them were boys. I was staying close to Orion as he enjoys destroying what other people build, and it was fascinating to listen to all the dynamics going on. I am working on letting Orion handle his own situations, but it is difficult at a public park. I don't know the temperment of the other kids or how they will react. I don't know who the parents are, or how they will react. And then there is the decision about when to limit Orion based on my prediction of how much his actions will upset the other child and/or their ability to handle it on their own. I also find it hard to stay out of other kids' business if they are getting into a conflict, but I usually don't interfere unless something hurtful is happening. I did open my trap at one point when one boy was having an issue with another. 95% of the kids were working on building a sand wall to channel the water, but one kid wanted to make a tunnel in the water.
Boy 1: Repeatedly asks Boy 2 to stop.
Boy 2: Silently ignores him
Boy 1: Raises his voice as if Boy 2 can't hear him or understand
Boy 3: Makes comment about how Boy 2 is 5 years old, as if to say he can understand just fine
Boy 1: In very snotty voice, "I don't care how old he is. He doesn't listen!"
Me: "I'm sure he can hear you just fine. He just wants to do something different."

That was all I said. I thought is was pretty "sportscastery" of me. I hoped they would take it from there. And amazingly, Boy 1 left him alone after that. And grey shirt boy tried to suggest some ideas. Yay kids!

And then Akasha did alot of this when we got home. :)

And in todays news...

... Akasha stared at her hand.

Yeah, it was a slowday around here. It really was amusing the way she did this for like 15 minutes.

In Orion news, he is officially obsessed with Lego Star Wars. He plays all day long just about. For some reason, he calls it Lego Starburst, which totally cracks me up.

Swaps Rock

Went to a swap today and got a bunch of cute stuff for Akasha and some good playclothes for Orion. I should have taken a picture of all the loot. Orion helped me go through it and sort it when we got home. It was really cute. He kept picking up baby things and proclaiming them "so adorable".

I got three pairs of these "adroable" socks. :) Does this count as a picture of Akasha for today?

Olivia is Two!

And she had a bowling party. Here is the birthday girl:
And the birthday sister. She
Orion loved bowling!
And he was actually pretty good. He got a strike that never even touched the bumpers!


High ten!

We decided to take a quick walk in Noble Wood on the way home. Peekaboo Akasha getting into the sling.
Love these shots of Orion in the meadow!

Officially Ghetto

We decided to do the mattress on the floor thing. This way the kids can sleep on the outside and I won't worry about them falling off. I worry about Orion when both kids are in the middle because he flails around so much, but he really hurt his shoulder when he fell out of bed awhile ago. So this seems like the best solution right now. I am hoping Ron can build a platform of maybe six inches or so to keep it looking so completely ghetto. :)

Orion's First Video

Well that turned out to be pretty easy! The camera doesn't take very good quality, but fun to have some video up nonetheless!

Orion time

I had my first one on one outing with Orion today. We went over to the library for a short time while Akasha stayed home with Daddy. I think it was good for him to get my full attention. :)

And... Orion has discovered the little camera. Since he showed interest in helping with pictures a couple days ago, I thought the small one would be easier for him to use since you can see on the screen what you are taking. Little did I know it would become an all day obsession!

So there will be alot more overexposed closeups like this in my future I am guessing...
And pictures of the back of the dogs head...
and abstract tie dye close ups...
and the baby gate... (???)
and many, many, many of these...
and my personal favorite - the baby parts between the fingers.

One of our library findings.
There will also probably be lots of strange pictures of me popping up.... I thought this one was kindof cool though.
And this one was great!
This one, however, was not. Just to show I have a sense of humor and to prove my claim that I am truly unphotogenic, this picture reached new heights of awful for me LOL.


Have you ever seen such a collection of crappy pictures haha? OK, it was only amusing the first time. I will try to stick to the interesting ones he takes from now on. There were movies as well, but I need to learn how to use youtube so I can put them on here.

We have peeps!

And I don't mean those gross things that are around at Easter. Remember the nest I thought had eggs in it? I was right! I heard my first peeps this morning, and now the mama bird is busy busy making food runs. Now my big question is how long baby robins stay in the nest and if they usually lay more than one batch of eggs per season. Google time!

And for your six week picture, courtesy of Orion:

More Sibling Silliness

I wanted to take a picture of Akasha in this cute yellow outfit, but this is what happened in the first shot:
And more silliness ensued.
Not sure what happened to the lighting here, but it is a bummer as I LOVE this picture.



Then Orion wanted to take one, and ironically this is the best picture of the bunch!
Since he was already in on the action I decided to try this:
But I only got one shot before Orion got squirmy, and I didn't get the focus right. :( Still kinda cool.

The tummy series.
Weird psycho eyed baby.
More head action!

Audubon

I wanted to get Orion out of the house today, so we decided to get over to the Audubon Society trails finally. Might have been a mistake, because I can't believe how sore I was when we got home! Then again we ended up walking farther than I meant to due to the fact I didn't print out a map at home. We actually got a bit "lost". Not really, I guess, but we didn't know where we were for awhile or if where we were going was going to lead back to the entrance. I thought the trails would be better marked!

At a junction....
These were pretty funny. If you pushed on them, they would rotate! Not a very good design! When I first noticed it, I got the impression we were in Wonderland haha.

Digging in the dirt. Stupid little camera doesn't have a very good auto focus.
Where Akasha was during the hike. :)
Lovely trail. I think this was the Woodpecker Trail, and we saw one!
Climbing on a fallen tree.
New friend! This is Owen.
We met him near the pond. He was a great match for Orion - about 4 1/2 but a head shorter. They were wrestling and knocking each other on the ground and laughing the whole time. Once in awhile Orion would say really politely the he needed a break. No yelling or getting upset. I wish I knew what the magic formula was. Every once in awhile there is a kid he just gets along with like peas in a pod. Turns out the family was from the Eastside or I would have tried to plan some future connections. It was great while we were there though!

Julio the Owl out for a stroll.
The whole place was really cool. They have several enclosures right near the entrance for birds that are permanently hurt or need rehab. When I asked Orion why he thought the woman holding the owl was wearing a glove, he said so she wouldn't get bit. I asked for another reason, and he said so she wouldn't get dirty LOL. I guess there is some Virgo in him. I finally had him look at the owl's feet so he could see how sharp the talons were. But it was cool he thought of so many different reasons!

We also saw a banana slug on the trail and a bunch of salamanders in the pond. Orion's favorite place was the nature center though. Especially the topo map. It was the kind that had a bunch of buttons to push that corresponded to areas or trails that would light up. Great fun!