thank heaven, for little boys

Yesterday Bonnie called. Do you want to walk tomorrow? I have my grandson. He plan was to go to Cedar Creek Park and use the stroller for a half and leave him to walk for half. That way he wouldn't get tired. As a bonus, there is a mega-park (officially called a destination playground) at the end where he could play. If he was good.

Sounds like a plan. We'll meet at her place at 9.

Get up, do a load of wash and pick up the phone. I do this every morning to see if I got my thousands of texts and messages. There is rarely any. Which is why I can't understand why the young people I hang with just can't seem to put it down.

This morning there was. It was from my sister-in-law who is raising her step-daughters kids. Yeah, it is wacky. Nothing about my family is normal.

Basically, the girl-teen wanted to go boating instead of babysitting her brother.  Could we watch her brother? He's 8.5. Aunt Pat is sick so I couldn't bring him here. I hatched a plan and took him with me. Bonnie wasn't a bit shocked when I arrived with another little person.

And we were off. We probably didn't arrive at the park till 9:30, and then had to get out the stroller and remember how to put it together. We headed across Ott Street to the Rose Garden side of the street.

 Bubba was always looking in the water for fish. Soon he got distracted by the fitness equipment. He finally asked what it was and I told him, and that it was for grownups—he was way too short to do anything correctly. No, I'm not! There is once side that is handicapped accessible and he was the perfect height for those. And he did as many as he could.

We were not far from Ott Street when the little man was getting antsy in the stroller. Perfect timing.

When we returned to the parking lot, we had water and cookies while Bonnie put the stroller away. Then we were off to make the loop around the pond. Bubba relished being in the big brother mode with his second cousin.

Little man was too short to see above the boards, and too short to see thru them. He improvised.

 We carefully played in the water.

And were fascinated by the ducklings.

Both boys behaved well and it was off to the park. We were there at least 45 minutes.

They will sleep well tonight.


Miles/Steps: 4.25 more or less. But at a snails pace. Little boys look and touch EVERYTHING.
Bathrooms:   I-3.5+ The indoor ones at the park are nice. (There are old outdoor ones too) The blow dryer is loud and funky looking. Since the park is for kids under 12 the sink should be lower.
Wildlife:        It was a fowl day. Get it? On the rose garden side a red-winged blackbird and a goldfinch. The older child kept hearing an owl. I heard it too. On the both sides of the park, we saw at least 14 pairs of mallards. Not altogether in one place--one pair at a time, for the most part. Then we encountered a male and two females with 5 ducklings. As the boys were totally entranced with the ducklings, there was an entire "sord" (it's only a flock when flying!) of mallards across the pond laying on the grass. Then we saw three more males. Finally, a gaggle of geese escorted by a swan. Which I think goes against nature. I could be wrong. Plus a regular assortment of common birds like sparrows and robins.
Weather:      Upper 60s and partly cloudy. Actually a pretty perfect day.
$ Found:       Zip
Extras:          The boys got along really well. The older one relished his mentor role.