Ok, so it was Sunday on the MSU campus with Cavan… and I’m no Seurat on the Island of La Grande Jatte, but it was a good Sunday nonetheless. It was my birthday, yay, and we took Cavan out for a walk on campus. It was really muggy though, so we didn’t stay out long, but we did stop to say hello to the ducks by the river, and took some pics of Cavan while we were there.
It’s Good to be the Kid…
For the 4th we all went for a walk down by the river, Cavan absolutely loved it and wouldn’t sit back in his stroller. He spent the whole walk leaned forward looking out the side of the stroller at everything and grinning.
After our walk we went to a parade that my friend Jolene told us about. Cavan thought the parade was interesting and enjoyed sitting on Mommy’s lap and watching everything and everyone — until the fire trucks and sirens came. The sirens were way too loud and scared him, but he still wanted to see what was going on so he alternated burying his head in my shoulder and craning his neck to see what was going on, all the while crying. After the fire trucks went away he was happy to sit and watch the rest of the parade. There was a bunny riding a horse and everything! Okay, maybe the bunny was being held by a girl on a horse, but it was stll very cute!
Cavan was too tired to stay up for fireworks, I think the loud noises would have scared him anyway. He’s been pretty sensitive to noise lately, which is normal as he gets more and more aware of the world around him. When he gets frightened it really makes me think about the fact that I’m his Mommy and when he gets scared he turns to me to soothe him. I’m amazed every day by how naturally being a Mommy has come, especially given that I wasn’t one of those “ga ga for babies” girls before I had Cavan. I guess having a baby really does open up parts of you that you didn’t know were there. Mommy and Daddy love Cavan to bits and pieces!
After I got out of work on Saturday we went to Fenner Nature Center. Cavan loves walks through the woods and it’s so much fun to watch him taking everything in. We stopped by a pond in the woods and watched some gigantic snapping turtles swimming around looking for koi dinner. Also looking for koi dinner was a least bittern, a water bird Shannon and I hadn’t ever seen before. Mister bittern was hunting fish and Shannon took some nice pictures of him. After we got back to the car I pulled out my field guide and learned that the reason we had never seen one before is that they are very shy and secretive, lucky for us this bittern wasn’t too shy - or he realized that we couldn’t fly and if we tried to wade through the water to get to him we’d be eaten by a thousand snapping turtles and leaches. We also saw a bullfrog, but couldn’t get a good picture of him because it was too dark down where he was.
It was so nice to get out with Cavan. I’ve been trying to take him for walks every morning before I go to work, but that’s just around our apartment complex. Knowing how much he loves going out to nature centers and seeing new things we try to get out as often as we can. They’re free to visit, so all we need is the free time and good weather!
Cavan loves taking baths, he kicks and slaps at the water and has a great time. We took a couple pictures of him having fun-time in the bath - of course as soon as we brought the camera out he got really serious so we don’t have the super big smiles on film! He loves the bubbles and trying to pull them into his mouth to eat them, and he really loves it when I fill the tub up deep so he can make big splashes!
Cavan and I went for a walk this morning since we both wake up very early. We stopped at the duck pond and said hello to the ducks, then went to the swings and played for awhile, we picked some blackberries that were growing on the edge of the apartment complex, and on our way back we saw a teeny tiny little toad. I picked him up for Cavan to see, he looked at the toad like “what are you?!” The toad was only as big as the tip of my little finger, and very cute. Cavan and Mister Toad stared at each other for awhile before Mister Toad decided to make a break for it and I put him back in the grass to catch his breakfast of mosquitoes.