Gotta enjoy the sun!

So Jenelle wanted to play with play dough, and it looked way too gorgeous to stay inside, so I thought PERFECT! We'll play with the messy stuff outside and I'll have basically no clean-up! No crawling under the kitchen table to chase down small balls so they don't get stuck to the bottom of shoes and tracked all over the house's carpet. Yes! So we set up the umbrella, the outdoor kiddie table and chairs and they went to town. I very quickly realized that somehow, Meri's education has been most seriously neglected. She had never played with play dough before in her entire life! Shocking really. Turns out we haven't play doughed recently, and when we did I saved it for Ms. Everything-Goes-Straight-In-The-Mouth's naptimes. Go figure. Anyway, she sat there eyeing it for the longest time. She watched Jenelle go about her business, eyed it some more, and then very timidly touched it. She looked up to me and I could almost hear her shy little curiousity asking what this strange looking stuff was for (But as Jenelle informs any stranger that asks Meri a question, and even occasionally reminds me, "she don't talk good yet. She don't say any W-ooooooORDS."). Anyway, I showed her how she could poke it and leave a finger mark, and tried to make it all sound very exciting in a high-pitched voice. She did it once or twice then looked at me to say, "really, is that it?" Hard crowd. So I rolled it out and cut out a shape for her. Again, just more blank staring. This all from the fearless child at the playground. I picked up the shape, handed it to her. She looked at it, looked at me, and without taking her eyes off of me brought it slowly to her mouth. "No, no Meri, not to eat!" She put it back down and looked at with a bit of a furrowed brow, as if to say, "then what in heaven's name is it good for?" I apologize for the play-by-play, but really, the whole situation was so funny to me. It's like she was waiting for it to jump up and sing and dance for her. Maybe this is what comes from all those interactive toys that light up, spin, giggle, vibrate, sing, and do who knows what else. Anyway, she's a funny girl. She did end up playing with it, but got bored and ended up wandering around the yard searching for ripe strawberries to eat, or flowers to pick. Jenelle did make her some "noodles and worms," and I don't think we should call them noodles anymore. That gives the impression of being edible. The only thing she really got into was pulling a big ball of play dough into small pieces and dropping them all unceremoniously onto the grass. No problem, right? Lesson learned: It is actually more work to clean play dough up off the grass, as it gets all matted-in and one spends all one's time pulling play dough out of grass, and grass out of play dough.

On another, unrelated note - our camera is broken. Sad. So, if I don't post as much, it will be because I don't have any cute pictures of the girlies - which is really the purpose of this blog in the first place. Here's hoping it's fixed soon and that it turns out to still be on warranty!