On the go, go, go

This past weekend was go, go, go. Saturday was a balmy 70 degree day here in Indy. We decided to head to the zoo. We purchased an annual zoo membership in December after being entranced by the Christmas light displays and zoo hours open until 8pm. Then January and February set in. Frigid, raw cold. No zoo for us.

I think every family with small children all had the same idea Saturday. It was stroller central. It’s funny. I’ve noticed our stroller usage is different than how other parents utilize a stroller. While other parents will use the stroller as transportation for the child, we use it to haul our huge diaper bag, my purse, etc, and have Kaia push the stroller. Unless, like on Saturday, we have Kaia nap in it – which normally I never, ever do because I am a total nap slave. She needs to sleep in her crib. I revise that – I need her to sleep in her crib. I need that break each day. It’s just funny to see all these other kiddos hanging out, chillin’ in their ride, while Kaia, with proud intent, determinedly pushes her stroller along. I want her to have every opportunity to move her body, to know how to use her body for her own transportation.

I had to nurse Kaia a couple times at the zoo and it was pretty inconvenient. There’s no real great place at the zoo to nurse a toddler. We found an empty amphitheatre but later another Spanish-speaking family and children were hanging there too. There was no other place to go so I nursed her there while all the kids played around us. I wondered for the first time if other people think Kaia might be getting a little old to be breastfeeding. I sat her up to pat her back and burp her and stood her up and realized how big she was getting. It was in stark contrast to a woman I had just witnessed in the women’s restroom nursing (or attempting to) an 11 day old baby. The baby looked like a little bird to me. She had to literally show the baby the nipple and after several attempts finally got the baby to latch on. Kaia was like that before too but now is like a little barracuda. She now lifts up my shirt if I make the milk sign to her. There was no way I could’ve nursed Kaia in that restroom. Every flush of the toilets and rocket launch noise of the hand dryers running intermittently would’ve prevented her from nursing.

Instead, I peacefully nursed Kaia in the amphitheatre, while I watched the large-by-North-American-standards Hispanic family kids play contentedly around us. My husband snoozed on a bench nearby. I felt the wind blowing gently through my hair and the sun shining on my face. My little girl suckled at my breast, and I sensed how truly good life was in that moment.

Kaia also continued hippotherapy last week. She was standing! while riding on the horse this week. She’s been riding a different horse than Molly (the white show pony on the first day). Her newest steed is a brown horse with white markings on the face. He has a thinner back. And, get this, his name is Fairy Tale. Can you believe that? Fairy Tale. How cute is that? After hipportherapy we went up to a friend’s house for a playdate. Kaia will be starting a new OT at the end of April and the only time she has to fit Kaia in is immediately following hippotherapy so we'll have to race back home to see her. Until then we're going to enjoy being out and about early in the day on those days. But the good thing is then we'll have Fridays completely therapy-free. I'm looking into another storytime we could go to on those open days or maybe we'll just do other fun stuff. It's so hard to get out with all her therapies. I'm also looking into starting her in a kindermusik class. The girl isn’t a bit overscheduled, is she?

Sunday we went to the circus in the late morning. I was so excited to go to the circus. We were all a bit disappointed, though. I remembered the childhood magic of the circus, but the reality of the thinly veiled animal mistreatment, borderline talent, annoyingly overamplified sounds, and the mixture of the smell of cotton candy and animal dung just wasn’t as magical as I’d remembered. $18 a seat wasn’t too magical either. We managed to stay for almost the entire show then Kaia had had it and got pretty cranky.

We also spent some quality time out in our front yard/driveway this weekend so that Kaia could practice walking/pushing her various toys. Our whole neighborhood comes alive in the spring. We don’t have a playground in our neighborhood so the kids really just play in the street. It sounds like the projects. It isn’t, but I do think these kids could use a decent place to play. All the kids come running when Paul is out with Kaia. He’s like the pied piper. He’s always been like that, even before we had Kaia. Back then it was all the neighborhood preteen boys (who are now, I can’t believe it, in college). Paul is the cool old guy. The guy that knows how to do all the skateboard tricks that their Dads can’t do. Paul had a half-pipe in his backyard growing up so he is more than a decent skateboarder. But all the kids are in awe of someone who is their Dad’s age throwing those kids of tricks, and ask “Are you sponsored?” I know he loves it.

One very cute little neighbor girl always come to see Kaia when we are out. She is such a sweet girl. She is 5 and will be starting kindergarten next fall. She just loves to come see Kaia. On Saturday we had Kaia’s wagon out, her fancy radio flyer wagon. She alternately likes to push and ride in it. The neighbor girl joyously insisted on pulling Kaia around in the wagon.

I had this image watching them as she pulled Kaia in the wagon down the sidewalk. I imagined them older, in high school. The girl is just over 3 years older than Kaia. I thought - maybe when they are older, in school - she will look out for Kaia. Maybe if she sees her in the hall or at lunch she will say hi to Kaia. Maybe she will set an example for how the other kids should treat people that are different. Maybe she will be a guardian angel of sorts for Kaia. I know that’s a lot to put on a 5 year old girl. But I’ve got my dreams.

What I love about this girl is that she never once has asked what happened to Kaia’s lip/nose. She has a bit of a speech issue – she stutters – so maybe she understands what it’s like to be different and sees past that. Or maybe her parents already have had the talk with her and explained things and told her not to ask. I don’t care. I just love it that she loves my girl.

It was so cute how she would copy how I interacted with Kaia. We’ve been teaching Kaia how to climb into her wagon herself (it’s pretty difficult b/c it has the high wooden sides attached to the metal wagon base) and the other girl took it upon herself to teach Kaia as well. She would repeat almost verbatim the things I and Paul said to Kaia. What power we adults have, for better or worse, on children. I forget that sometimes. It surprised me to see that we have that over other children, not just our own.

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend.