Flying High

Enjoying a little fun at the park ...

Another Zoo Trip

The Lincoln Park Zoo is not only close to us, but its also free. So on a nice day I often take Brooke there. I think she gets more out of it than running around at a park (of course, we do that too!) and I find the experience equally enjoying.

Today's trip, while enjoyable, was a bit more than anticipated. As the end of the school year approaches every school in the Chicagoland area must be squeezing in some last minute fieldtrips. Though not there long, there were no less than 20 or so schools walking around. This makes the zoo very crowded and loud, but the biggest problem is just the lack of supervision of a lot of these kids. They would scramble in front of Brooke to see an animal, walk into us on the walkways and yell and holler (sometimes with obscenities). Instead of a relaxing time at the zoo it was a bit hectic and chaotic ... but Brooke didnt seem to notice.

We met Gina, Paige and Evan there. All Brooke was worried about was Paige. She wanted Paige to hold her hand at all times. She wanted to sit next to her while eating lunch. She didnt let her out of her sight. In addition to keeping her eye on Paige, she managed to see a few animals too :) Overall I'd say she was pretty happy with our trip!

Due to the crowds and confusion I wasnt much for picture snapping and didnt get a single pic of Brooke. I did get a picture of a momma duck and her ducklings cruising along in a new pond being built.

Elmo Live!

Today Brooke went with three friends (and their mommies) to see Elmo
Live. It was quite the day!

We carpooled with her friend Connelly (and moms friend Kim). We have
an extra carseat for travel so daddy installed it for Connelly to
use. Daddy figured Brooke would notice Connelly was forward facing
and so we decided to make the big move ... Brooke is now forward
facing too!

The ride went great. Considering the girls didn't even look at each
other in the car, I'm pretty sure Brooke woudnt have noticed her seat
position ... But we were trying to figure out when to flip it anyway
and this gave us our opportunity.

The show was great. Brooke sang and danced and called out character
names. She blew kisses towards the stage too! It was a little long
for her and she tried to leave (on her own) several times. She also
yelled "bye bye" after each song, assuming it was time to go. It
took some work, but we made it through the whole show ;)

On the way home, Brooke and her new Big Bird cuddled up and took a
little snooze.

One, Two, Three!

Brooke has been very into the concept of counting. We count things with her often, generally up to the number three. She likes to count things on her own, but usually just points out things and says "one". Then she mumbles other random things for the other numbers, or just gives up counting after that :)

Occasionally she says "one, two" depending on her mood or how excited she is about counting. If we ask her to repeat us, she can easily says "one, two, three", but I had assumed that it was a little beyond her and have not tried to push her in any way.

This morning we went to Starbucks. We let Brooke walk (versus taking the stroller), and it must have been the longest walk we have ever taken. Brooke had to stop to smell every flower, point at every car, and step on every item she saw. At one point she found a short wooden picket fence, with each picket being about as tall as her chest. She touched each one as she walked and counted "one". She kept repeating "one" as she went along ;) I gave her a little help and started counting for her "one, two, three" and then started over at one again. She listened to me talk as she touched each one and walked along. The next house had wooden paneling on the front.

Brooke walked up to the paneling, touched the first one and said "one"

She moved onto the next one and said "two"

And moved onto the next one and said "three"

Before you know it we will have her working on her addition, subtraction and multiplication tables ;)