Big Fish Little Fish

Below you will see a photo of Joel Andrew running to Big Fish Little Fish camp. Sorry they are out of order. We have been going each Monday, Nana comes and watches James and it is a good time for me to have 1:1 Joel Andrew time. Frankly, it is our first 1:1 time in a while, since way before James was born.

The first week was magical. He had me cracking up. He could not get enough of Mommy for days afterwards. This week, was well, a little more challenging. First off, he was a bit of a cranky pants in the morning. He has a sniffle, but generally, I think he woke up on the wrong side of the crib. Second, the topic of the day -- tide pool exploration...
We start each class waiting for all parents to arrive. Had I remembered this from last week, I would have been late today. But I was 5 minutes early. So, that combined with the fact that we waited 15 minutes for others to begin, was not so good. 20 minutes of coloring is tough for many toddlers, but especially tough for mine. Though I have to give him points, he did well.

Class begins and we all sit in a circle and sing, then talk about what we are going to do. My son barely sits still. Then she hands out the snails that we colored last week for the kids to post on the "tide pool" wall. All of the kids post their snails, mine sticks his on the book shelf to the side. Yes, I know genius...

Then we go to the next task which is coloring this week's animal. No, the coloring before was just stalling. So, my kid who is sick of coloring is now tasked with coloring another animal. We can all sense how well that went. Then he has to stick this animal in the tide pool. Mental note, pin the tail on the donkey is not going to be his game.

Finally, we go outside for tide pool exploration. We are promised to see crabs and more snails and maybe even a starfish! Very exciting. We begin the long hike down to the beach area and there she (very nice, very eager teacher) points to the rocky- very, very, rocky shore, and says "Ok little fish, go to the water." She tells them that is they begin to fall on the rocks to bend their knees and put their hands out in front of them. I am looking at my toddler who is barely paying any attention to this and about to fling rocks all over the place, thinking - hmmm. This shall be interesting.

Interesting it was. The whole walk down to the shore I kept thinking either he, or I will break an ankle. It was hard for an adult to walk along the steep hill down slippery shore rocks, let alone a toddler! But we make it there, and I think, we will both nap good today.

At the shore we are to explore the animals. My genius son picks up the snails and proceeds to throw them in the bucket. I am telling him he needs to be gentle they are animals and I point to the part where the snail peeks out of the shell, and my son shoves his finger in there.

18 certainly dead or maimed snails later, we find a crab. I am quite glad my son wants nothing to do with the crab as I am sure he would pull its legs off and make the toddler girls who are fascinated by them scream.

Just before class ends another toddler splashes copious volumes of salt water in my eye. Which actually makes me feel good. My son is not the worst in class today.

We hike up back the hill and run for the car before a major rain storm. I am tired, so is he, but I guess it was goo together time? On the way home we get Dilla (his favorite Quesadilla) and he asks me 10,000 times for his juice. I said "at home" 10,001 times though. It could have driven anyone mad, but I actually had fun with it, saying it in different languages and insisting I was the one with the last word... I won!