Out and About

Friday was a beautiful day. Well, by Wisconsin-in-March standards, anyway. The sun shone bright all day, the temperature climbed to 55 degrees, the streets were full of snow-melt rivulets.

I was fortunate enough to be off work taking care of Joy, due to a vacation day at the daycare.

First thing that Joy and I did was walk Rose to school, wheeling along with the jogging stroller. Then we kept going, making the walk over an hour long altogether. So lovely to be out with the sun on our faces!

Then after a therapy session, we went out again, this time to an open-gym session for the five-and-under set at a local gymnastics place. They have a glorious huge gym all full of trampolines and big squishy mats and ropes and a crash pit and a carnival-sized bouncy castle and a 3-story play structure like the kind at McDonalds Playplaces (only bigger). Joy and I haven't had many opportunities to hit this place in the past year, but between therapist illness and daycare vacation, we were able to go once the other week and then again for this Friday visit.

Joy had a blast. I loved seeing how much she learned from the first visit to the next. One particular example was the bouncy castle, which had a ramp kind of thing you could climb when you wanted to go up to the slide and then exit. Her first time in the castle the other week, I had to climb in with her to nudge her up to the slide. Then her other two forays into the castle that visit, I was able to stand outside the castle and call her over to the ramp, and she'd climb up. On Friday, I was able to call her to the ramp right away. Then by the end of our visit, she actually went up the ramp with no input from me at all!

And then she napped after lunch. Ahhh....

And then in the afternoon, we went to the zoo! We're lucky to have a pretty decent zoo in town, with the added advantage that admission is free. Quite a few animals are off the displays in the winter, but there were plenty left to enjoy. The penguins were in fine form, and the polar bear, and the otters. My favorite, though (and I think Joy was at least watching them somewhat too) were the prairie dogs. They were doing this funny thing where every minute or two, one of them would stand up on its hind legs and scream "Wheeeek!" It would be answered by similar salutes from other prairie dogs: "Wheeeek!" Almost as entertaining as the prairie dogs were a group of college kids watching the prairie dogs. Every time the "Wheeek!" thing happened, the observers also threw their hands into the air and hollered "Opaa!"

And then we picked up Rose from her after-school program, and when we got home, we found snowdrops blooming on the south side of the house.

Spring is coming. Even though it has rained pretty much all weekend so far and will probably snow before the afternoon is out.