Nature Walk: rock climbing, tree sliding, and turtles

How’s that for a catchy title, eh?

When I am feeling anxious and aimless, and Aiden is fretful and relentlessly pushy, I know it’s time to get outside and run off some steam. Lately, we’ve been packing up and going to local parks, because he can run and we can both see some wildlife. And it takes us away from our circle of neighbor friends, who are GREAT, but Aiden tends to obsess about them and who is coming over and when and oh no, they are playing with each other down the street WITHOUT HIM. So leaving all that drama behind is a huge relief sometimes.

After climbing up this rock, which he has done before, he used the tree nearby as a sliding pole. Who is this child? The climbing isn’t new, but the confidence to slide down tree trunks is. I love it.

We spent at least 45 minutes sitting on this bridge, watching some very friendly painted turtles flirting with us. I think maybe they were expecting a snack or something, even though there were plenty of very stern signs about not feeding the fish or chucking food into the pond.

Kind of ghostly under the water.

There were at least three that we saw. I don’t know if they were always the same three, but it felt like a LOT, and Aiden was enthralled. I’m glad that he wants to sit there for hours and watch turtles.

At the end of our time, my dad, who was at a nearby mall, stopped by to give us back Aiden’s boots that had been left in his car from the fishing trip the day before.

Love these guys.