Fun in the Sun

We had a great time this morning at Discovery Park downtown. Matthew, Collin, Melia and Gavin with their parents joined other kids and a Gymboree representative. To get the kids "warmed up", we started with a song about the colors on the large parachute that we were all sitting around. Collin was not interested in sitting in my lap. He wanted to practice his new walking skills. Next, the kids stood in the middle holding onto a colored large cloth cord. The kids backed up, walked forward and then shook the cord. Collin like the shacking part the best. I had to hold him while walking backwards since he has not mastered this skill yet. Next, the kids got to pick out a hand puppet from a bag which was used to pop bubbles that the rep blew. Collin and Matthew were more interested in "sharing" their hand puppets with each other and did not even notice the bubbles. After bubble time, the kids all gathered in the middle of the parachute while the parents held the outside edges. We sang the verses of "Wheels on the Bus" while walking left and right with the parachute. Collin loved this part as you can see from the huge grin on his face. During one part of the song, we shook the parachute which Collin did not like. Next, the kids got under the parachute while the parents pulled the parachute up and down over the kid's heads. This is when Collin noticed the pond close by and started walking towards it. I saw him, picked him up and put him back where he started. He began walking to the pond again. I picked him back up. We did this several times when I decided that he was not going to stop with without me find out something else to distract him. Nothing worked and Collin continued to threw some really good tantrums.

He certainly drew attention to himself with his tantrums after everytime I picked him up and brought him to the other side of where the pond was. Nothing I did distracted him from his focus. While picking up the last time, I noticed that across the park was one of those water "parks" where the water shoots up out of the ground. I thought, "why not see what Collin does in there". That did the trick!!! He had no fear and had a blast walking around and playing with the water. It did not matter that several times, the water shot near his face, at his back or on his feet. He laughed the entire time. Matthew and Melia eventually joined him. Melia was not interested in the water getting her wet and stood on the side most of the time watching the boys play. Matthew seemed to have as much as Collin was having but he got hungry. Collin did eventually get bored and took a break to have a snack. It was time to go anyway since Collin was wet, hungry and needed a nap. What great memories......