Fishing Expedition

The Lil-Le-Hi Trout Nursery is just south of Allentown, and it's where the City raises fish to stock the Lehigh River and Jordan Creeks for recreational fishing. I would NEVER eat ANYTHING out of any body of water in Allentown or Bethlehem, but a lot of people do, so there ya go.

Anyway, the Nursery is a GREAT place for toddlers. If the giant tubs of rainbow trout aren't exciting enough, you can buy big bags of fish food and feed the suckers, which guarantees a frantic, flapping, fishy fiesta with every greasy handful. Alison and her buddy Jason loved it, and we all actually spent over an hour there, which was a lot more than we were expecting. There were lots of other toddlers there too, so it seems to be a tot hot spot.

They also have an arboretum there, so when Boo and Jason were finally over the fish, they chased each other through the trees. It was cute-- she kept snatching his hat, and he kept grabbing her ponytail, and they would giggle like crazy and shriek and take off for another 90 laps around the oaks.

Yesterday we went back to day care after a week-long break, and Alison slipped noiselessly into the stream of things back there. Today we're off to Sam's trainer's farm to practice some agility before it gets too hot, and tonight is the first show of the Upper Saucon concert series. Summer is pretty much underway!

Picture From Yesterday!

Kitty Litter

First off-- Jeff has updated our browser, so NOW I CAN POST PICTURES AGAIN!!!

(Of course, this morning the camera is out of gas, so I need to charge it first.)

This morning's story is about the kittens at the pet shop. We had met the kittens two weeks ago. Critter Corral is good about fostering unwanted kittens-- people bring them in from the side of the highway, under their porch, you name it-- and Tracy and Heather let them live in the shop and get them their shots and find them homes. If they can't place the cats, they become shop cats and there they stay. (Amazingly, they only have 2 adult cats living at the store.)

Well, Boo LOVES cats. She takes after her Aunt Betsy that way. So the ladies always introduce her to the new kittens when she comes in to help me get Sam's food and other accoutrements. Last time, I found Alison in the employee bathroom trying to prise one kitten out from behind the toilet while she had the other one clutched, yowling, in her arms. She doesn't seem to mind when their frantic little nails (which are like needles) scratch at her; she's too busy trying to "hug" (read: squeeze the living hoo-hah out of) them.

I asked the staff if Alison was traumatizing the cats for life and making them hate small children. Apparently, not at all. The more kittens are handled by different kinds of people, the more used to it they get; it's the ones that never get roughhoused that grow up being skittish. So Boo is apparently part of the conditioning program. She does her job well.

We were in yesterday and every time I put Boo down, she would inevitably vanish and I would inevitably find her in the back room where the fostered kittens live. The cats would be clinging to the ceiling and squeezing themselves in much-too-small spaces to escape her clumsy affections. One poor beast made the mistake of needing to hit the litter box, and it was sitting there with this "do you MIND?!" expression on its face while Boo swatted it on the head and meowed at it.

I hope she gets over this phase, but I have a horrible feeling she won't. (No kittens for the 2nd birthday please. Oh God.)

Mondo Update

Hi everybody-- between the technical issues with Blogger and our busy schedule, there's been a lot of lag time between posts.

But spring has sprung and we are taking full advantage. This weekend has been very busy for Boo-- she's at a great age where suddenly she can do these little-kid programs and actually get something out of them, and with my new schedule we can do a lot more stuff together, and we're getting out and trying new things and meeting new kids and having a blast.

Today was Boo's first time being a guest at a birthday party. This mom invited all of the toddlers in the day care-- this is like 10-12 kids-- as well as the birthday boy's other buddies and family friends, so it was quite a fiesta. Luckily for her, nobody took advantage of her by dumping their kid off and then high-tailing it to the mall. The kids ran around the sizeable backyard and played on the swingset and blew bubbles and things like that, then ate cake, then smacked a pinata, then all collectively collapsed into naptime/sugar-crash insanity, so the party broke up before the donkey got its poor tail mashed on its eyeball.

There was one other little girl there, and Boo bonded with her by driving (!) this battery-powered Jeep all over the yard, with the little girl stomping the gas pedal and Boo steering, with surprisingly impressive results. They both had pigtails, so it was hilarious watching this little car with these two little pigtailed heads swaying back and forth and giggling hysterically. (NOTE TO GRANDPARENTS: DO NOT GET HER A BATTERY POWERED JEEP OR SCHOOLBUS OR ARMY TANK OR ANY OTHER KIND OF VEHICLE!!!)

Yesterday, we went to the Allentown Symphony's Musical Treasure Chest program, where one of their members introduces the kids to a particular instrument, and they have a storyteller and play games with music. It's really cute. Boo didn't play any of the games, but she was certainly interested in what the other kids were doing. Yesterday's program featured the violin.

New Boo feats: she can say "no" (yay), she's getting the hang of potty training (again, I'll spare you the details), and the other day, we saw the alligator at the pet store.

I pointed to it and said, "Look, Boo. Gator."

She looked at me and did the Chomp.

Zoo Crew

I'm going to go ahead and start posting again, even though the bloody software won't let me upload pictures-- I'm going to get with Blogger support and see what's going on. We have creaky old dial-up and I suspect that the "upgraded" software is no longer compatible.

This is a shame, because I have some cute recent pics.

Anyway, as some of you might know, I've changed my work schedule so that Boo and I have Tuesdays and Thursdays together. (She stays later at day care on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, which is fine because she's just napping, and when I pick her up at 3, she's ready to go do stuff.) So far, this is working out well for both of us-- it means we can go do more mom/toddler things together, since those are invariably scheduled for 10 a.m., and we can hang with our old stay-at-home crew again.

Thursday, we took Alison and Sophia to the Lehigh County "Zoo." It's a facility that's had a lot of organizational turnover in the last couple of years, and it shows-- half of the exhibits were closed and the open exhibits were not the most gripping. For example, they had a PONY. On exhibit. In a ZOO. I will never gripe about the Da Vinci Center's lack of resources ever again. It wasn't a big deal because, as a Da Vinci employee, I was able to get all of us in for free. I feel like I should send them a check to help upgrade, but I'm going to wait and make sure their staff is stable for a bit first.

I digress. The zoo wasn't as big a hit as we thought it would be. I think it was due to the fact that it was hard to see some of the animals if they were sleeping, and if they were awake, they scared the bejeezus out of the girls. Their favorite part was this giant, empty teepee that was just randomly set up in the grass; they loved running in and out of it.

They had some cool animals-- kangaroos, rams, a herd of buffalo, some owls. But man, does that zoo need some love.

On the way out, we're driving down the exit road and all of a sudden, the road runs right into a creek. We're like, "did we hit a service road or something?" and then we see this sign that says, "the kids LOVE fording the Jordan Creek at the end of their zoo visit!" We're thinking, "oh, really...?" and Jenn is forming the evacuation plan while I'm furiously cranking the Jeep into 4WD. Then we drove into the Creek, which was like driving through a large puddle. It was kinda fun, but that is the oddest zoo we have ever been to.