Photo Diary of a Rainy Day

When I first moved here, everyone told me the greatest thing about raising kids in Southern California is that you can basically play outside year-round. None of that crazy tongue-freezing-to-flag-pole frigidness of the frozen North and precipitation is always at a bare minimum. Awesome. And I can say we've become very spoiled by the luxury of fighting mid-afternoon boredom with a walk around the neighborhood or a playdate at the park. Even in the dead of winter, you can pretty much throw on a long-sleeved shirt and a light jacket and spend hours outside, soaking up your vitamin D and appeasing a toddler's endless craving for constant movement and fresh (I use the term lightly given my location) air.

So now, when it rains, I find myself all forblungent (a family word for "confused"--I never realized it wasn't a real word until I used it once in college and was practically laughed out of the room. Awesome.) What the hell do I do with a toddler on a rainy day?

Normally we would have gone to our indoor gym class, tumbled on the mats and climbed the ladders and swung on the monkey bars amongst the other 2-ish year old hurtling masses of energy. But Ethan currently finds himself in possession of a snotty nose and, this morning, a suspiciously croupy sounding cough (although he didn't once cough after 8am today), so we decided that gym class and any potential playdates were a no-go for the day. Which left mama and toddler staring at each other after Little Einsteins, and I'm pretty sure we were both thinking the same thing: "Dear god. It's going to be a looooong freaking day."

Here's a little photo sampling of our cabin-fever day:

First, we finger painted.

He called this one "roller coasters"....Okay

And study in purple hands

Then we made silly faces at mom when she would. not. put. the. camera. down. for. the. love. of. god!!!!

We played with the truck Mama had to buy today at Target because it's just like the one they had in every single room of the pre-school we visited yesterday.

Then we built and Godzilla'd several small castles and towers of mega-blocks.

Ethan tried the Mega-Blocks box on for size.

It was, maybe, a bit too big (as are his pants...always).

The box says there are 250 pieces; methinks they lie.

We drew on our easel. (And then we lowered the easel to make a desk table, and did eleventy billion puzzles).

Then it was noon, and time to climb into the Mega-Blocks box...

To watch this...god help me, he loves his Pinky Dinky Doo. I cringe every time we watch it, but at least later on he wants to make up stories from the "story box" (apparently he thought he was sitting in his "story box" while he watched today).

After we'd had our fill of Pinky Dinky Doo and turkey sandwiches with pickles (he insists on pickles with lunch, daily), it was time to dig out the play-dough "optussus" and see what else we could create...

Behold, our school 'o fish (actually sharks, but shhhh, don't tell Ethan).

Hard at work cutting the purple play dough to smithereens and ensuring that it is ground into the crevices of my coffee table for years to come.

Ethan tried to make friends with one of the new foster kitties. See how well it's working?

And we discovered that said foster kitty is not a real fan of a camera with flash.

And after the cats were sufficiently freaked to ensure that they'd spent yet another week only coming out from behind the guest bed at night, it was time to construct the isle of Sodor on our coffee table.

And we went around, and around and around....

until it was time to watch Elmo. (please note: Ethan does not have his face up against the TV; I am not that awful of a mother. The perspective of the shot just makes him look like he's too close to the screen).

And now, the rain has stopped, the toddler is asleep, and I am in desperate need of a glass of wine. Mama, out.