Lemony Webbles

Teresa activities

We've been talkng about visiting Allerton Park for a week now and never seeming to get there when Teresa decides that today is the day and I am going to take her even if nobody else wants to go. The rest of the family are homebodies today so it's just the two of us. I feel a little nervous, never having taken just Teresa on a day trip before. Is that true? Surely we've been somewhere together. Well, if we have, I'm not remembering it right now. I'm mostly nervous because I'm not sure that the picture in her head of "Allerton" is the place we're going to end up after half an hour in the car. How she will react when she realizes this? My fears are validated when we arrive at this beautiful mansion and formal gardens surrounded by acres of wildflower-carpeted forest and she cries and cries that this is NOT Allerton. I needn't have worried too much, though. Her moderate, patient temperment prevails and she is happy after a look around and a special purchase of fruit snacks. We proceed to have a wonderful time together: hiding in the shrubbery, following the fish maze round and round, running through the daffodil garden, looking for the wildflowers we know the names of, throwing pine cones in the pond, her 'reading' the plaque to me that tells about the aquifers feeding the pond, making up stories about the bird pictures in the nature center -- in general having a great time. She falls asleep on the ride home and I think about what a big preschooler she's become. Fiercely independant, able to handle a little adventure, and ever trying to make people laugh.

Later this evening, we are on our way all together to Target to get the girls a few summer clothes and are joking about all the things we NEED from Target, like a third waffle iron and more floppy, useless tongs. Teresa pipes right up with- "We need a supper machine!" That gets a good laugh, so she tries another one: "We need a lunch dryer!" We laugh even harder so she keeps trying, with varying success, for absurdity- "We need dinner meat!" "We need cake lotion!" and on and on until we get in the store. It's a great mood to start a shopping trip in, and we get in, get done, and get out in about twenty-five minutes. Definitely a record.