I can't believe the peanut gallery is letting me get away with more than a week between posts! Perhaps my constant whining about my finance class eating up all my free time is garnering some sympathy. Only three more Thursdays--woo hoo!

Last weekend, my sister and her girls visited and we all went swimming in their hotel pool. We'd had fun with this in Minneapolis, but John didn't get to go because he was at the rehearsal dinner for the wedding. He was looking forward to the energetic swimmers I'd described. Unfortunately, the water in this pool was very cold, which did not encourage much in the way of leisurely lounging, floating, splashing, etc. Daniel was the only one who seemed unbothered...perhaps due to his tremendous insulation?

Over the weekend, I took the boys to the park and then for a walk along a new trail that leads from the park along a creek. There are houses backing up to the new trail, not all of which have fences (though I imagine the increased foot traffic will lead to a booming fence business in this neighborhood!) One of the houses had a play set in the back yard, and as we walked by Edward shouted, "I want to play in that park!" I tried to explain the difference between a park and a back yard, but it was lost on him. Playground equipment=place I must stop to explore. Period.

We have friends who swear that a back yard play set is the single best purchase they have ever made for their kids--worth every penny. I can definitely see that. Still, it's a lot of pennies. We'll have to see how things look in the spring.

In the meantime, Edward is very into imaginative play. Some fire fighters visited his daycare with their truck two weeks ago and all we've been hearing about since then is "Firefighter Jason." For a while now, Edward has used his baseball cap turned backward as a fire hat, but after this visit, he further enhanced the costume by pulling the adjustable part down over his face as the "mask." I got him a fire fighter costume for Halloween, but I'm almost reluctant to give him the actual hat, for fear of stifling this creative/pretend impulse.

Daniel is also into exploration, although on a smaller scale. At the park, he likes to see how many leaves and/or wood chips he can get in his mouth before I notice (usually not more than one!) However, when confronted with actual food items on a tray in front of him, his instinct is to pick them up and squish them in his hands. This has happened with pears and spaghetti in the last couple of days, though apparently he did successfully feed himself pancakes this morning at school.

Another very sad story in our local news this morning. A two-year-old boy has died and his mother and brother injured. Not many details are being released, but there are some indications that the mother may be the culprit. I thought the name seemed familiar when I read the paper this morning, but it wasn't until later in the day that I realized why. It's the name just above ours on the attendance registry at our daycare. The little boy was in Edward's class. Edward, who is quite enthralled with names, has never mentioned him to me, possibly because he only comes two afternoons a week, and since Edward leaves shortly after noon, they only have lunch time together. Still, the teachers are quite upset by it all, and understandably so. Such a terrible tragedy.