One-on-One

I always enjoy spending time with the kids individually when I can make it work. We do things together as a family often and I think it's nice for them to have "special time" with just mommy and/or daddy on occasion. Obviously, because of age and the additional sleep time that goes along with it, Sophie has gotten considerably less one-on-one time than Will. But in the next few months, she will likely drop her morning nap and free up some more time. And in the mean time, I just have to make it happen when I can. I'd also like for Craig to do some individual activities with the kids so that Sophie gets more opportunities.

Saturday happened to be the perfect day for this because Sophie took a 3 hour nap in the morning and therefore staggered her afternoon nap considerably later than Will's. (She did that on Friday too! I think she's growing!) So, in the morning, Will and I went to the library as usual and then on to the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge for their Nature Tots program. (That link is actually the 2009 schedule, but it's the first Saturday of the month.) They host this free program once a month throughout the year and there's a new topic each time. This month's topic was Bugs. The kids made egg carton bugs in the meeting room using pipe cleaners and construction paper. They also learned that the legs are attached to the "thorax" of the bug and poked them into the egg carton appropriately.

Next, each child got a butterfly net and went outside to catch some bugs and have the class instructors place them carefully into a bug viewer for the group to inspect. I was very impressed with all the kids' bug-catching skills! They had a nice variety of interesting looking bugs - both that crawl and fly.
Will was more interested in watching the other kids and hiking the boardwalk than bug catching and he didn't want any help from me. ;) Checking out another kid's caterpillar find.

He loves these posts along the walking path that let you push the button to hear different animal sounds.

After awhile, we went back inside the building to view the bugs and talk about the different types of bugs and how some of them can help us. We especially talked about honey bees and how much we use honey in our foods.

Here's Will on the way out holding his egg-carton bug and his "honey straw" - a special treat for each of the kids.

When we got home around noon, Sophie was just waking up! So we ate lunch and Will layed down for nap while Sophie and I headed out to the zoo! Whenever we go out as a family, Sophie is usually on my back and, while we engage her too and she's a part of it all, it's usually more about "Look at that, Will!" or "Check this out, Will!" I know that will change the older Sophie gets, but I wanted a chance to visit the zoo at her pace and just focus on what she thinks is interesting and engaging. So we only checked a few exhibits and took our time at each one.

First off: the Arctic exhibit to check out the seals and finally see baby Siku - the new polar bear.

Siku is only "on display" until 4 p.m. most days and our family doesn't arrive until at least that time (after naps) usually. So it was a nice opportunity to see the cute, baby bear today.

Next stop: African exhibit. We took a train ride around to see all the African animals. She did enjoy this more than the expression appears. She loved the train whistle and I'd say "choo choo!" and she'd smile so big.

Next up: penguins! And some pretty flowers too.

Then, just a brief photo op for mommy and we called it a day.