Weekend with Grandma

We've just had the nicest weekend with Grandma, Pa and Aunty Caz. We took Tom down to a bird sanctuary to feed some ducks and he had his first close sighting of a pelican. He was pretty amazed at it and when Aunty Caz fed it some bread, he was all, "WOW" at the size of it's beak. Considering the pelican was probably bigger than him, I'm sure it would be quite an amazing sight to a little one. Tom doesn't seem too fussed with ducks and sometimes I wonder if it's because they are brown. In all children's books and toys and puzzles ducks are yellow or white. He knows they are ducks because he quacks at them (just like he woofs at dogs - talk about Dr. Doolittle), but I get the feeling he's a little disappointed that they don't look like the ones in the books. Just a thought I had. We have some black swans in the lake near our house and he likes those, especially when they stick their heads under the water and then pop back up again, but the ducks, it's only if they are eating the bread we are throwing in the water do they have any appeal. I actually enjoy walking down to our lake, watching the swans for a while and then walking onto the park. I think that's one of the better things about being a mum. It gives me opportunities to do stuff that I wouldn't normally do. Like go see swans and pelicans, or go on the swings and slides and the park, or run and jump in waves. No more laying in the sun trying to get a tan (not that that is very sun smart anyway! nb: Australia has the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world thanks to the CFC's ruining the ozone layer). But really sunbaking probably had a limited life span anyway, whereas now I get to do things I haven't done in 20 years and it's FUN! Anyway, the second part of the weekend was taken up by hanging out with Grandma and what was going to be a walk along the foreshore turned into a ride on Thomas the Tank Engine. This went for about 40 mins stopping at different intervals picking up and dropping off people along the way. Every time we stopped Tom was looking at me and Grandma saying, "more please", and then choo-chooing as we got going again. When we finally had to get off, we had tears; even after 40 mins! So many promises were made to come back another day. We also saw a Helicopter take off and land multiple times. This was very fascinating and eventually Tom was asking to "hop on 'copter?" Grandma decided that was an activity to do with Dadda sometime - maybe in about 10 years? Best wishes to all......