A Day at the Park

I picked Nicholas up an hour early today so we could go to the park. After all, how can you pass up a 60+ degree day in February????

The park was a little wet from the recently melted snow, but completely usable. There are still a few patches of snow lingering, though, which you can see in the background of this photo:

From 2011 February

Nicholas spent a little time on the swings and this bouncy contraption they have, but what he was really excited to do was "up stairs, up stairs, weeeeee," as he describes it. This translates to climb up the stairs and go down the slide. Over and over and over again. (And he now remembers enough about what he does that he was able to tell Daddy all about the park at dinner. He repeated "up stairs, up stairs, weeee" a few times, as well as told Daddy "Nicholas park. Mommy park" and that there were choo-choos. (The lightrail track runs right past the park.))

In the 4 months or so since we were last able to go to the park his legs have gotten long enough that he can now actually walk up the steps, which blew my mind. Much to my surprise it was also a long enough span of time that he had lost his nerve about going down the slide on his own. He would sit down at the top poised to go and excitedly say "ready set go" repeatedly but without actually going. I had to stand next to the slide and hold his hand as he went down a few times. Eventually he started doing it on his own, although still more tentatively than he did last summer.

I took lots of pictures of him on the slide and can't pick my favorite so here are a few:

From 2011 February

From 2011 February

From 2011 February

Man do I love this little boy!

And here he is once he started getting braver. Ready, set, go!!!

From 2011 February

I am so excited for spring . . . and summer . . . and fall. I just really hate winter. And Nicholas is happy about the warm weather too. Ever since they went outside at school a couple days ago he asks to go outside constantly and he was ecstatic when I told him we were going to the park. I may have to get him early again. Because even though we have these few random days that feel like April, it is actually still February and so the sun sets by 5:30.