A Salute to Those who Own Toddlers

Lincoln with his bear, "Tartar"

As one who lives on her own, there are many things I take for granted. These things are brought into spectacular view when sharing my home with a 3-year-old. For example, on my own, I typically tend to have sufficient quantities of:

• paper towels
• clean sheets
• towels
• toilet paper
• clean dishes
• food that is appealing to the general population of the house
• privacy

That is all a little different with the addition of a very small person. To my friends who are moms, I officially salute you.

Lincoln and I have had a pretty fun few days, all things considered. A photo synopsis of our goings-on:

It poured all day Monday, so we went to see the dinosaur bones at the Natural Science Museum on campus. It was pretty cool. There was a wall of snakes on the fourth floor, though... I am such a paranoid wimp, I had to cover my eyes the entire time we were on that floor... I almost elected not to walk down the hall at all (I quite literally had shivers down my spine just thinking about being in proximity to that many snakes. Ugh. The shivers are back now just thinking about that horrid wall of evil).


On the way back to the car, we stopped to check out the rushing Waller Creek.


The rainy day made us a little stir-crazy, so we had a rollicking good "Crazy Dance" session.


It finally stopped raining, so we had a lovely day out Tuesday. Lincoln LOVES Austin!


We fed bread to the swans and ducks at Town Lake. Murphy thought we were feeding him and kept trying to take bread from Lincoln's hands. The swans hissed at Murph (was anyone aware that swans hiss?).


Our much-anticipated picnic became a reality at Zilker.

We then played, played some more, took Murphy home, and went for milkshakes at Amy's/Phil's [P. Terry's milkshakes are better and much less expensive, but we did get our really cool photo-booth pictures taken at Amy's. Granted, something seemed to be wrong with the printer and the quality is not what I'd call "good," but the experience was totally worth it (and I actually had cash on me!). The second photo in the strip is my personal favorite. In the first, I was saying "Don't pick your nose" (note the hand lowering from his facial area). The third is classic deer-in-the-headlights-m.j.p., and in the fourth, Linc could be one of Raphael's cherubim)].

After the milkshakes and more playscape-madness, we visited the downtown library and brought home some books and videos. We should have done that Monday, but c'est la vie. I find the downtown library to be a vastly confusing place. Odd, as I typically use the even-more-confusing PCL.

These boys are pretty tired after a long day.

Murphy crawls underneath the blanket to snuggle with Linc.