Vacation Days

Alex is officially off to the cottage with his grandparents for a week. This is the third year he's gone and he always has a great time. It looks like he'll get some good weather, too. My guess is that he'll spend most of his time in the pool and on the playground.

This means that Nathan gets some quality two-on-one time with his parents. This morning, we were able to go out to the park. It was nice and almost relaxing. The slides were all very wet from last night's rain but that didn't stop Nathan from enjoying himself. At first, I tried to stop him from going through the puddle but then I realized I was spoiling his fun. A little water and dirt wasn't going to hurt him. So I relaxed and he had a fantastic time, even though water was occasionally dripping from his shorts.

He's definitely more adventurous than the other kids his age. We must have hit the right time for two-year olds at the park. Usually it's mostly older kids but this time we had about five different children, all around two years old. Nathan was very social, saying hi to the other children when I prompted him and even being surprisingly patient about waiting in line. But he was the only child to climb the big ladder by himself and certainly the most fearless when it came to going down the big slides.

I have to say that I'm really encouraged by how well he was interacting with the other children. One of the things I love about our neighbourhood is how multi-cultural it is and this morning was definitely a multicultural experience. We heard Arabic, Chinese and Russian (I'm guessing a little, so apologies if I've gotten it wrong). Nathan seemed quite intrigued by all the different languages.

He decided when he'd had enough and told me "All done." I asked him if he wanted to go home and he repeated "Go home. All done." Then he took off down the path to go home. But he did stop and wave good-bye to everyone when I prompted him.

All in all, a good first day of vacation.