Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Tykes Today: They're All Wet

We have a little one with us in the morning. He is small, blond, two and a half, and still in diapers. (or "nappies" whatever.) He knows what the schedule is and so encourages us to move along faster in our schedule in the understanding that the faster we finish our tasks (such as tidy up time, biscuit time, and garden time) the faster he will see his mother again. The order of tasks must be preserved- but surely not the time duration, right?

Anyhow. Today during garden time he decided that it was cuddle time and raised his arms to be picked up before burrowing his face into my neck for a couple of minutes. Yes little one, you can stay there and be all cuddly. Then he got bored and scampered off to play with another little boy's car for a bit. Eventually the car lost it's lustre (How?! How could that be?! It is a car!) and he scampered back, held out his hand, and said "come." How could I resist? I was being commanded by a very sure toddler. So we walked hand in hand around the perimeter of the garden looking at flowers and plants. I'm a little in love. Even when I have to physically block him from going back inside ten minutes after we've come out because maybe his mother will be back.

This afternoon we went to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain: (http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde_park/diana_memorial.cfm) The fountain is a large circle with lots of different textures. Hilariously there is a line on the enterance sign saying "please do not walk in or on the fountain" when clearly it has been designed to be walked. Today was rather hot and the place was crawling with sopping wet children in various states of undress. We pretended like our tykes were not going to get sopping wet. We took off their shoes and socks, rolled up their trousers, took off extraneous layers (like a skirt if they were also wearing leggings) and then let them roam. Obviously we were foolish in this respect. They were soaking by the end. I walked around the fountain twice ('around' as in through the water and around the circle. I blithely ignored the sign's request) holding hands with some of the slippery-er tykes. OOh. That could be read two ways couldn't it? Oddly I mean tykes that were more prone to slipping rather than those tykes that might slip away from us. Maybe I should have stuck with the tykes that would slip away from us? Not to worry, we didn't lose a single tyke.

Eventually we got them out of the ever circling pool of water, pretended that they were dry, made them put their shoes back on, and walked down to the shore where we fed the ducks/geese/pigeons an entire loaf of bread. Mmmm. Nice day.

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