A Walk in the Park

I took my daughter put for a walk in the park today.  In true toddler fasion it took 45 minutes of running and wrestling to get her dressed and into the car with her proclaiming the entire time that she just wanted to stay home, until her shoes were on and then she stood at the door saying "go, mama?".

When walking with a toddler and actually allowing the toddler to walk and not riding it is hard to do anything other than stroll, very slowly.  And so we started strolling and quickly stopped when she spotted the Robins under the tree "ook, mama, birds!" I was almost as excited because as everyone knows Robins mean spring!  The next attraction was a Golden Retriever named Max who was very happy to stop and be petted and scratched behind the ears.  A group of squirrels with apparently little to no fear of humans caused us to pause for a good 10 minutes and throw them Cheerios while my daughter giggled.

We continued on, walking, running and marching around the park.  We were about 3/4 of the way around when she suddenly stopped, started stomping her feet and yelling "stop it" at the ground.  It didn't take me long to realize that she was mad at her shadow for getting in her way. She wanted it to stop being there and was trying to figure out how to get it to go away.  If anyone has any suggestions on how to explain shadows to a two year old they are more than welcome to share them!  I had to carry her past the sunshine and into the shade before I could put her down.

By the time we got to the car she was crying "No, mama, more walk, walk again." - this from the girl who wanted to spend the entire day naked in the house.