Rush Creek Tot Hike

This morning was a fun story time at the library today. Mason's attention at these things is hit or miss. Some days he is into it, and some days he has a 15 minute attention span (the program is 30 minutes) . Today was the latter. Thank goodness he loves the hand stamps and can be cajoled along to get those.

This afternoon we needed to get out of the house, and I thought I would try out a pretty flat walk that I use to do with my dogs all the time Rush Creek. We left the stroller behind because a tired toddler is a good toddler, and Wyatt and I rocked the MOBY WRAP.

It was so fun walking at Mason's speed and seeing what he sees, and learns. He was actually looking for butterflies today- and he told me so by saying and signing! We learned our sign at Kindermusik, and it is so awesome to see him still use it to communicate. He also is talking in 3 word sentences very often - on this walk he was telling me "I threw rocks" - and it was into the tall grasses which is an approved activity in our family. He also now tells me "I got _____". Him using "I" is an accomplishment as he has been talking in the third person for quite some time referring to himself as "MayMace". Just this week we have been working on asking nicely "May i please ________", he needs to be fed about half of the words..but is getting it!

It looked like someone had just been around clearing the trail, and Mason enjoyed playing with the cleared branches:

We gathered rocks and put them into our pockets:

Mason LOVEs to spit. So we have decided that outside it is OK to do so. He takes advantage of this!

Mason telling me "I got rocks" I replied "Yes, you HAVE rocks"

Playing with the long grasses - he wanted to eat them so bad!

Not too far into our walk we found this blackberry bush with tons of ripe berries on it! We stopped and had a snack on the way out and the way in. Mason is a HUGE fan of this activity. Unfortunately with my iPhone you can't see the berries - but be assured they are right behind where Mason is proudly posed.

And here is the resultant berry mustache:

All in all a great day! We will repeat this walk again, probably quite often!