So we started our morning at the library for storytime. It was great. We sang songs and played music with our bells.
We read The Little Red Hen which Nicholas loves to read at home. When the librarian was finished reading the story, she reviewed it with the children and asked them to tell her again what activities the friends refused to help the Little Red Hen do. Nicholas jumped up and said, "Thresh the wheat!" He was proud when the librarian said he was correct and she even complimented him on remembering the word "thresh". Next, they sang "I'm A Little Teapot" and made the motions to pretend to be teapots. They also read the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".
As the children were leaving, they were each handed their own set of Goldilocks and the Three Bears finger puppets and encouraged to re-enact the story at home for their friends and family. Nicholas was so excited about the finger puppets that we didn't get 10 feet from the story time room when he wanted us to re-enact the story. I was Goldilocks and he played all three bears.
It was such a beautiful day that we both just wanted to get outdoors. So we went home and packed a picnic lunch and walked to the park. The sun was pretty strong so we followed the sidewalk into the wooded creek bed that we love to play around. We set up our lunch at one of the picnic tables in the shade of the trees.
Over lunch, we ended up talking about a class that Mrs. Deb taught us in the Parents As Teachers group that was about reducing, reusing, and recycling. We looked at our containers and found the recylcing triangles on them. We talked about how we should use containers that can be cleaned and reused instead of the disposable containers that his apple sauce came in. We also talked about the importance of putting trash in the trash can.
After lunch, we explored the creek bed and Nicholas decided to help clean it up by picking up a few pieces of trash and taking them to the trash can.
With our civic duties done, we went about playing...looking for unusual rocks to throw in the water, hunting for cool bugs, and all the basics of exploring the great outdoors.
We found some really big rocks to throw into the water. What big splashes they made!
As Nicholas was crawling out of the creek bed, he grabbed on to a tree to help pull himself on to the bank.
As soon as he got up on the bank, I noticed that the tree had a vine on it that looked like poison ivy.
I tried my best to explain to Nicholas that we had to go home right away to give him a bath. He didn't like that idea because he just wanted to keep playing. I finally convinced him to go home and we both got cleaned up. I called the pediatrician's office and spoke with the pharmacist at CVS. I gave Nicholas some children's Benadryl to try to protect him a serious allergic reaction. As far as I know, I've never been exposed to poison ivy so I don't know what to expect. Nicholas and I both have such bad outdoor allergies that I can't help but be a little worried about how he might react to it. So far he is showing no signs but the pediatrician's office said that it will probably take a few hours to show signs of a reaction and, in some cases, it may not show up for a day or two.
It started out as such a fun day. However, after the run-in with the poison ivy, I wish we had just stuck with our original plans for going to the apple orchard. There's probably not much poison ivy on those trees!
But when you've got lemons, make lemonade. I took the opportunity this afternoon to talk to Nicholas about dangerous plants that we want to avoid. We looked at pictures of poison ivy and poison oak and we studied how we can tell what it looks like in the wild. When Stuart came home from work tonight, Nicholas told him all about the "plant with three leaves".
1 comment:
I hope Nicholas stays itchy-free! Looks like you guys had a great time together :)
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