A Trip to the Park

This afternoon we went to a park, a different park than normal because it was about to rain (better to drive to a park and be 30 feet from the car then walk 4 blocks there and be stranded if it rains). It was quite the adventure. Felicity was along for the ride (in her carseat, or strapped to my chest), but the real star of the story is Ben.

First, we get in the car, and on the way to the park Ben asks the question dreaded by all parents... "How did you get me as a kid?". I gave a very general answer: "Dad and I decided to have a baby and you grew in my stomach just like Felicity". Nope. Not good enough "but how did you make me?" Uh. Awkward laughter. Aaron started to jokingly say the infamous line "when two people love each other very much..." and we both cracked up. Then I said something like "men and women each have part of what it takes to make a baby inside them and we put them together in moms stomach". DH stepped in at this time and decided to compare it to making pancakes. Something like "Its like when we make pancakes - mom has some ingredients, dad has some ingredients, you mix them together and it bakes in mom's stomach". I asked Ben "Make sense?" and he said yes. LOL. Hope we didn't scar him for life.

We got to the park and walked over to the playground. There were quite a few kids there. Benjamin is not great at making new friends. He tends get this really "mean" face on and stand in their way and sometimes yell random things at them related to what he wants to play... we are working on it. Today though he was yelling "Feeding Mice ahead!!". We asked him to make sure and this was indeed right. We have NO idea what he meant or where he got it. Something about his new nursery rhyme story book (from the garage sale yesterday)... DH and I were both puzzling over it when out of no where another little girl yelled the exact same thing, obviously copying Ben. OMG we almost died laughing. The madness is spreading!! Well, despite his bad / mean face, he did eventually manage to get involved in a game with two other kids... where he was the bad guy of course!! They started calling him Mr Goo and running away from him and he ran after laughing maniacally. Guess as long as everyone is happy it works well!!! As DH said, he casts himself as the villain!

After those kids had to leave we wondered down to the baseball field. I did not know how it would go, but Ben LOVED it. I was pretending to be the pitcher. I would act like I threw the ball, then they would swing and say "CRACK" as if they were hitting the ball hard and run the basis. It was very fun and there were some great moments. First, DH told him he had to touch third or it wouldn't count, he dramatically reached down and placed his hands on it. Later, on the third or fourth go, he got tired and just sat down between second and third base. Then, when DH decided to pretend to be an outfielder, instead of running his bases, Benjamin chased DH into the outfield to help. Fun was had by all!!