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There are several great parks within walking distance of our home that we love to explore an an almost daily basis. Each park has its’ own features that make it unique and enjoyable to visit. With each new park comes creative equipment to play on that sometimes takes a creative mind to figure out.

When I was checking out one of the parks, I was surprised and a little disappointed to find no traditional baby swings but a big disc hanging instead. But now after some play dates, I see the enjoyment from having a few children go on the swing together. If Leah wants to go for a big swing she lays on her back or sits with me.

There is also a funky, blue apparatus that looks like an over-sized boiled egg holder. Not exactly sure on the specifics of this, I put Leah in and gave her a little spin a round. She loves it though I fear for her dizziness if she is on there for more than a minute.

The teeter totter is great as well as Leah can sit unaided on it. The other side has a backless bench which is great for older kids as well.

Leah has no fear of any of the equipment. If I would let her, she would walk or crawl straight down the slide. I think the whole idea of depth perception is supposed to ‘click’ pretty soon and I just hope and pray that she doesn’t get hurt learning the hard facts of life.

The variety of equipment at some of the new parks seems very inclusive as well. Older and younger kids can have fun alongside each other as well as those with physical disabilities. We often meet new friends to play with while we are there too. What fun!!

Unfortunately for Leah, she will probably never own a pet while living under our roof. Don’t get me wrong, I like animals but mostly when they are in their natural habitat. If she begs and begs, in a polite, not whiny sort of way, I will give some thought to what my parents did for us.

After bringing home enough of the “All About Me” sheets my siblings and I filled out at school, my mom felt we were deprived. We had dutifully filled out our name, age and siblings but always had to put zero for the number of pets we had and left the area for the type of pet or name empty.

So my mom got some goldfish from a lady a church and we took care of them till their sad death from a toddler messing around with the fish food and overfeeding them.

For the next week we are looking after our neighbour’s fish. Leah doesn’t seem totally enthralled but does seem to glance at them every now and again.

I find her reactions to new thing so fascinating to watch. There was an eight week old puppy at the park yesterday that I am sure weighed no more than a pound. The pup ran around excitedly and would jump up on Leah with his little legs only reaching the bottom of her dress. Leah was totally enthralled with watching the pup and okay with him jumping up on her as long as she had a hand on me.

Though we will not have any animals (except for the possibility of fish), I am so glad Leah will still have many opportunities to appreciate and learn about all the amazing animals on our earth through our neighbour’s pets, the zoo and books.

My garden is doing very well with lots of water in this heat. The peppers, strawberries, carrots, onions and lettuce are steadily growing alongside my new tomato plants. I may have gotten a little over excited at the garden center and bought a few more plants than I intended but I had a hard time passing up strawberry plants with visions of fresh strawberries picked from my own garden being eaten alongside vanilla ice cream on hot summer nights.

We will see if my plans come true.

I recently have found some other creatures that had visions of a great feast by eating my garden. As I watered the lettuce last night, I noticed some leaves have holes in them. Needless to say, I wasn’t too impressed and totally unprepared for my visitors as we are on the second floor. The tree that provides our apartment with great shade on the warm summer afternoons also is getting eaten alive.

I found a few very tiny caterpillars, way smaller than the one in this picture with some of there dinner shown missing in the next picture.

After glancing through some websites after googling “green caterpillars eating lettuce”, I decided to mix some dish soap with water and spray it on the leaves. Sounded organic enough and was the only thing I had at my disposal. I was desperate after reading how fast they can chomp through a few plants and did not have the time or patience to try find and kill them all as I could very easily miss one.

I could just go to the garden center to see what they recommend but I am running out of room on my deck for more plants. Blueberries and ice cream sounds so delicious as well. So far, I seem to be winning the war and I will continue to fight but I am sure it is not over.

With all the hot and sunny weather lately, we have been enjoying the great outdoors. This is especially true on the weekends when daddy gets to play with us too. On Saturday night, we had my side of the family over for dinner and dessert to celebrate my mom’s birthday. I think Leah was in a bit of shock at the amount of people in our small space staring at her. She didn’t say a peep for most of the evening.

After dinner, we walked over to the elementary school that is less than a block away. I wanted to show my mom how much Leah loves going on the slide and playing on the playground. They have a large, curly slide similar to the one our favorite park has that Leah has gone done many, many times. Once Leah and I reached the top of the slide, I put her on her back and let her go. This slide is a little different than the one we normally go down as it has small gaps where the different parts of the slide connect. I think her shoe caught on one of those and she went for quite the tumble down the slide. And that is the sad tale of how I caused my child her first bloody nose and fat lip. I felt horrible. Terrible. Awful. She calmed down pretty quick and there was hardly any blood but still, not fun.

At least the walk to the playground wasn’t a complete loss as we all found a part of the playground enjoyable. From conquering the climbing wall to games of X and O’s, swinging competitions to climbing on the monkey bars, we all had fun and felt a little younger.

The later part of this week and this weekend was a great relief after seeing this face rarely without a soother after her reaction to one year shots.

I am so happy she is back to her normal self; climbing in boxes

and her seat that was left in her room on the floor

while enjoying being in a nice, cool summer dress.

Whoever thought hair clips were to keep hair looking neater, has not met my daughter. But what does it matter as long as you can see this sweet face anyways.