SweetPotatoClaire: A day at the park~

Well, I suppose it'd be more accurate to say "about a half hour at the park", but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it, or the generally sunny and cheery connotation. Anyway, we went to the park. The Montreat playground, to be specific. A most wonderful playground, indeed. Claire is quite a bit too young and small still to really get into most of what the playground has to offer, of course, but I thought it'd be fun to take her and see what she thought. Her uncle Kevin has been in town for the last few days before heading West and so he joined Claire and I on our little adventure. My little lady LOVES her uncle Kevin with such enthusiasm and it is delightful to watch her light up around him. (It has also been delightful to be able to shower, cook, and get a few other things done here and there with the extra set of hands around here...thanks, Kev) So, it turns out that while she still kinda digs the swing, tunnels and stairs are where it's at. Having no stairs at home, she hasn't had much practice but sure enough, she's all about it. Yes, my little one who just 8 months ago was learning to roll over, and then 3 months ago learned to crawl, has now figured out climbing. She tries to climb up me, into and out of the bathtub, up the couch.... it's a funny thing to watch as she lifts those little legs high and searches for a place to rest her foot.

A couple nights ago I gathered a few large boxes (that we are saving up to line the soon-to-be-built two raised beds that will round out our garden space for the year) in order to make some tunnels for Claire to crawl through. I wasn't sure if she'd be into it, but she most certainly was! And hiding things inside the boxes for a new way of playing peekaboo? Well that is just about the coolest thing ever, if you ask her. (I did, and while she didn't exactly tell me that she thought so, I could see it in her eyes) The playground had a nice long green tunnel for Claire to crawl back and forth through between Kevin and I. I watched her and couldn't stop the thoughts in my head from wandering to that place of "How in the world can this be? How can my baby be this big? This old? This capable? Already?" We are fast approaching her first birthday, and so I'm finding my mind in that place very often these days. Remembering my pregnancy, her birth, those first foggy weeks, and trying to really feel it all over again. In some ways, it seems like yesterday. In other ways it does seem like a year ago, or more. I suppose that is how time passes. I could go on and on, but I think I'll save that for another time. Surely there will be some reflective posts coming up as we get closer to and then pass the big day.

We ended our playground adventure with some creek time. Not too much though because although it was a bit warmer yesterday, it is still the middle of Winter. I remember Claire not thinking very highly of baths for quite a while and wondering when that would change. Slowly, she came around and now she loves the water just like like you would expect a little Aquarius that was born in the tub to. Cold as it was, she wanted her hands (and feet, but they were covered and mama wasn't feeling that) in the water, on the wet leaves, feeling the slimy sticks.... so I let her play in it a little and watched the questions in her eyes and wondered what was going on in that little head.

All in all, it was a very lovely little half hour, indeed.