Woo-Hoo! Back from spending a day and two nights with my 5 year old nephew. We did it all: visited a puppy, went to the zoo, swam at the wading pool, went to the park and played mini golf. Foodwise he had nachos, chicken nuggets, french fries, a push-up, pizza and a number of "juice" bags throughout the day. If not for the oatmeal I made for breakfast, he would have gone a whole day without encountering any nutrients -- ahh, to be young again.

Best quote:
"This slide tickles my pen!s!" (Shouted while on the way down the roller slide at Palmer Park.)

Best conversation:
N: Donna, I have a con-fession to make
D: Okaaay. What is it?
N: I'm not really a person.
D: Oh really, what are you?
N: I'm a robot. But I don't live on space though, I live on land.

When I asked him how he knew about "confessions" he said he learned about it from the Scooby Doo movie he had watched while I was getting ready. The movie features a lady and a dog -- well, that's what they look like. They're really aliens. Towards the end of the movie the lady gives the confession speech outlined above. He switched it to a robot though -- to avoid copyright infringement no doubt.

Anyway, it's kind of a new take on the old "bad guy dressed as a monster" theme that the old Scooby Doo shows relied on. Oh well.

While we were at the park, I witnessed the most brazen example of lack of supervision I've seen to date. A toddler, I'd guess no more than 18 months old, walking around with no adult in site. I'm not even going to comment on the fact that it's somewhat odd to bring a kid that age to a park without intending to play with him, but seriously, no one was even watching him!!!!

I first noticed him when my nephew and I were playing on the bouncy teeter-totter things. These are on the edge of the play area, not too terribly far from a busy street and quite close to a drainage ditch that fills with water -- when it rains, which it hasn't, but still. Anyway, he toddled on over and climbed up on the teeter-totter thing we weren't on. I kept waiting for a hysterical adult to show up and retrieve him because they noticed he was missing, but no one did.

He got stuck getting off the teeter-totter, and I was sort of hoping he'd cry so someone would notice he was missing -- nope, the self reliant little sucker got out of that one and proceeded up the stairs of one of the large climbers. Incredible! It was stressing me out big time!! Off he went, across various wobbly bridges, peeking over railings, climbing ladders, going up flights of stairs and down huge slides. As I'm sure the parents reading this can attest, balance is not a real strong point with toddlers. All bets are off when they're climbing. I swear it was like that movie Baby's Day Out (or whatever it's called) or that Animaniacs cartoon with the baby and the dog. He'd sort of stumble off one platform onto another and keep right on going.

I couldn't stop watching. Which means that at least Iwould have been able to give an accurate description of the almost inevitable accident when the EMS crew showed up.

He finally toddled (unscathed) back to two rather large women, who apparently couldn't be bothered to actively watch their children. Even at that point I couldn't tell for sure if he was with them, especially when he left again without either one batting an eye. Out the front of the stage area, toward another street. Maternal instinct much? We're talking 15 to 20 minute intervals of non-contact, with the little contact that existed being initiated by a very small child. It's not like there's even a fence around the play area.

The big ladies took the kid with them when they left, and he didn't appear to have any broken limbs, so I guess it all turned out okay.