Park Days

Ava is just getting to an age where taking her to the park is actually fun for both her and for me. 

It used to be that I would take Ava to the park and I would push her in the swing for a few minutes...

she would get bored. 

So I would let her walk around....and I would spend the majority of the time trying to stop her from eating all the wood chips.

I would always leave thinking, "Why do I take Ava to the park again?" 

Now, she definitely is more independent and understands what to do on the playground. 

She LOVES to play with the other kids. That is definitely her favorite thing to do.

Unfortunately for her though, this little park I take her to is usually pretty empty - it is completely fenced in and designated for kids under 5 

(awesome because I don't have to worry about older kids knocking her over on accident).

But that just means she gets free roam of the entire playground.

She climbs up the jungle gym (is that what it's called?) and she can slide down the slide all by herself

(and then tries, and fails, to climb back up the slide). :)

She climbs through all the tunnels.

She runs to the swings and then signs "up, up, up" until I put her in the swing.

Then, she laughs and laughs as I push her higher and higher and when she's ready to get down she signs "all done" and off she goes onto the next activity. 

She still loves the wood chips, and spends a lot of time carefully putting as many wood chips on the benches as she can and then brushing them all of as she claps and smiles and looks at me like "Did you see that, Mom?"

And then she holds my hand as we walk back to the car. 

I love my little bug.

Even though she is growing up way too fast...right before my very eyes.