Three Cute Things

Saturday Smiley did four cute things.

Juggling

Recall that the action of throwing is still fairly new to him. I had not played with the Flying Penguini much since that March blog post, but on Saturday morning they were out again.

I was practicing my two-item juggling. Smiley was practicing his throwing.

After a bit he wanted a second Penguini. So I handed him one of mine. He stood there, one in each hand, looking at them. You could see the gears spinning in his head.

Then he tossed the one in his left hand to the side, passed the one in his right hand to his left hand, and then tossed it to the side also.

Then he looked up at me. "Yay!" I said. He has the basics down.

Skateboard

I have not been using my skateboard much since Smiley started walking. I did not want him to get overly ambitious. For most of the past two months it has been hanging in the gazebo.

But on Saturday he decided to take interest in it again. Since he asked nicely I brought it onto the grass where it would not roll.



He stood on it. Now what?



He often walks along the deck's steps, which are not much wider. Balancing on a stationary skateboard was not a challenge, but he was very proud of himself anyway.



But it would not go! He remembered that I put one foot on the ground when using it.



But that did not help either. He soon lost interest in the skateboard, which is fine with me.

Sliding into a Pool

In the middle of the night, raccoons were using our inflatable pool to wash things. It eventually became a mess of leaky duct tape.



So we got him a new hard-plastic pool.

On Saturday I set up his little back yard slide to go into this new pool. He thought this was great. For about a month he had little interest in his slide. Now he is using it repeatedly and intently.



Notice his mouth is open. When he was first walking he would make an "Ooooh..." noise while doing that new thing. Perhaps it helped him concentrate? Sliding into water was apparently similarly novel.



Hooray!



More balancing.



The pool is nice to play it, too.



Water Slide

Saturday night we went to Splash! in Springfield. What a busy place!

Previously he had only been to Tamarack Pool. That facility only has a swimming pool with a long wheelchair ramp (which also serves as a shallow toddler area).



For kids Splash! has a toddler pool, a slightly deeper pool, a large wave pool, and a water slide. (There is also a hot tub and lap pool for adults only.)

We had purchased a flotation vest for Smiley. It took him about ten minutes to get used to it and stop fussing.



He surprised me by being very fond of the shallow part of the wave pool. Watching waves approach and feeling them knock into him was very entertaining, especially if I was lying on my side behind him to prevent him from being knocked over.

But the best part was the water slide. This was not surprising, since he has loved curly slides since he was eleven months old.



Taking a picture when on the water slide does not show much.



(Yes, we finally used for its intended purpose the waterproof camera bag we had purchased as part of an inexpensive alternative for a baby's MP3 player.)