Fun at the Park

We've missed a lot of weekly park days in recent months. Winter weather and River's nap time have not been conducive to us hitting the park in the early afternoon. Warmer weather is upon us and River is transitioning from two naps a day to one nap a day. As a result, we've actually made it to the park a couple times lately, and are looking forward to more visits.

Interestingly, as River has changed his nap schedule he's also become much more adventuresome. He was a busy little boy at our most recent park excursion.

Here he was heading for the playground,

but got distracted by the plants in the planter.

He had to stop and get a drink- all that walking is thirsty work!

 Here's where his adventuresomeness really surfaced. He climbed the stairs of the play structure.

And stopped to give me a smile- you can see how pleased he is with himself.

It warmed up quickly, so we took off his sweater and he climbed the stairs again (and again, and again...).

He thought about going down the stairs, but really wasn't sure about it.

At the other end of the play structure from the stairs was a double slide. River got down on his hands and knees to get in position to slide down the slide. I held his hand and helped him slide down, which he thought was great.

 Then he got really brave and decided he could do it himself if he went down on his stomach.

After awhile of that, it was time to move into the shade for awhile, and River found a tree that he really wanted to climb. He tried to get a toe hold, but there just wasn't any way to grab onto it. He wasn't super happy when I told him this wasn't a good climbing tree.

I've put River in one of those baby bucket swings before and he hated it. We gave the adaptive use swing (not sure of their real name, but I did make sure no one actually needed it) a try, and he thought it was great. He could barely see over the Y of the harness, but apparently it made him feel secure enough that he had a good time swinging.

River is definitely growing up into a busy little boy who's determined to expand his horizons and try new things. It's fun and scary at the same time :)