Lots of them happened at Aunt Lala's house last week! It was so fun to visit, but the time flew by, just as I knew it would. He made himself right at home and proceeded to dive into all of Ben and Alex's toy cars and diggers. Car heaven!! I just thought he was playing, but Laura noticed he had actually sorted them as he lined them up. If you can't make it out in the picture, there's a spot for pickup trucks, a spot for diggers, a spot for small regular cars, medium regular cars, large diggers, and the best one, a spot for ??? (anything that didn't seem to fit into a category, like a helicopter)... Didn't teach him that, and apparently he's been doing that all along at home, but we don't have enough cars for me to have noticed he was categorizing them. I just thought he was assigning each vehicle a parking spot each day!
Reid had his first trip to the movies! I can't say he thoroughly enjoyed it, but for a two year old I think he did pretty well. The theater close to them in Katy has a kids' series during the summer and you can see a movie for *gasp* ONE dollar!! Laura is always on the lookout for fun things to do and that was the perfect idea for Reid...if he didn't make it through an hour long Winnie the Pooh, it was just a buck.
Thankfully, I had just introduced him to popcorn the week before. I've been putting off introducing it since popcorn is a choking hazard, but so far he's carefully chewed it. Reid loved the popcorn and previews, but when he was out of popcorn he told me, "All done!" and promptly prepared to walk down the stairs to leave. I pulled out a small package of M&M's, which he devoured, and he did the same thing. One bag of Teddy Grahams later, I realized that Reid, too, must not be a Pooh fan. So we called it a day and headed for the lobby, to ogle over "candies! Candies!" in the display case, then drive a pretend tank in the arcade part. Luckily, the movie only lasted another ten minutes or so and I didn't have too long to entertain him.
I mistakenly thought that Reid would love their neighborhood pool this year since he can walk. It has a regular pool, a pool with water slides, a great splashpad/pool, and a large baby pool. I didn't think to get a picture of the whole shabang, but it's a pretty cool place. As soon as we walked in, he was fixated with the huge water slide (you have to be a certain height and be able to swim w/o floaties) and continuously gravitated toward it. He immediately went to time out, twice in a row. Luckily, there were two smaller water slides (but you still can't use floaties) where one adult could help him up the stairs (I was worried about him slipping!) and one could catch him at the bottom of the water slide. He loved that a few times, then was fixated with the big slide once again. If he couldn't go on that, he didn't want to play, so we sat and had a l-o-n-g snack break while Ben and Alex played. Of course, when they were done and dried off, Reid announced, "Pool!" and promptly jumped into the baby pool. Sheesh. This kid has amazing timing.
Back at the house, Reid wanted to try out all the fun things in their garage...the bike, trike, battery-operated jeeps, and a little ride on thingee. I gave in and let him ride the trike for a few minutes (notice how he wouldn't use the pedals and screeched at me when I tried to help him out). He didn't seem to mind the heat and humidity, but I sure did!
The next day we skipped the pool and played in our backyard. Laura set up the sprinkler under the trampoline for the midday fun. Again, I thought Reid would love it, but he jumped for a second and was "All done!" Alex wetting his hair in this bucket was waaay more fun, apparently.
The older kids had fun jumping and I got to meet a few of the neighborhood kids. Reid did enjoy attempting to drink out of the sprinkler, which was entertaining to us adults.
The next morning, we got going a little earlier so the kids could play outside without melting. All three of the boys were excited about Ben's jeep.
First, Reid rode with Ben. Ben, of course, had to make sure he was buckled in. Such a good little rule follower and sweet big cousin to watch out for Reid! He was a very safe driver and mainly stuck to variations of the same circle around the park. Ben is very observant, too, and noticed that Reid liked when he went over the little hill, so he made sure to do that with each pass.
But Alex decided that he wanted to drive his jeep, too, so he and Laura went back to the house to retrieve it. As soon as they were back, Reid decided he wanted to ride with Alex, who is a little more adventurous in his driving. Two little daredevils... They rode all around the park, not going on the same path twice. Just about when we mommies were going to melt, Alex's jeep battery slowed down, signaling the need to go home.
We drove to this cool splash area later. You can't really see everything from the picture, but it had a ship theme and tons of areas to play in. We had it all to ourselves!
Reid, of course, was not interested in playing. He hung around Laura and me, slowly enjoying some pita chips and the ducks. One duck noticed his chip and snatched it out of Reid's hand, which he thought was hilarious (but it scared me! Still not sure if it actually bit him, but didn't leave a mark...). Right out of the car, he was saying, "Kak, kak, kak!" (quack, quack, quack) and thought they were hilarious. He even named two, Poop and Green. I'm sure you can gather where Poop duck got his name, and Green duck had green feathers.
Laura gave Ben her old cell phone from Australia since it didn't work here in the States. Ben thought it was the greatest thing ever! It had a few songs on it, which became the soundtrack for the week, but oddly enough he and Alex loved the cell phone rings even more. Laura and I got a kick out of it because it was the original Nokia ringtone that provided so much entertainment. We dubbed it the Nokia Dance, but by the time I ran to get my camera, the best dancing was already over. At least you get the idea...
We had so much fun with Aunt Lala and the cousins! Time flew by and I wish we didn't live so far apart, but I'm sure thankful they aren't half a world apart any longer. And just so they didn't forget about him, Reid left a little parting parking spot for one of the cars...
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