Zanna's Five!

Zanna turns FIVE (how are the girls turning five???) on the 27th, so we celebrated her today with a fun outdoor bike parade at her church's playground.

Zanna in blue on pink

Josephine in pink on blue

Josephine had lots of fun celebrating her lifelong friend!

Meanwhile, Clement had his own little party.  

Did a little swinging.

Did a little climbing in and out of cars.

Did a little escaping from Mom, crawling across the playground, climbing into the sand pit...

...only to find out he actually doesn't like sand very much.

At one point, I joined him and tried to show him how to shovel the sand, which he found disgusting.  

Later I saw him trying to get to a bench to pull up on, so as to extricate himself from the grainy substance, but he couldn't get to it because he was averse to putting his hands into the sand.  The most he would do was lean forward on the very heel of his hand, keeping his fingers raised above it.  He couldn't actually reach the bench by doing this, though, and he kept recoiling back into the upright position every time his fingers tipped down onto the sand.  I watched him do this repeatedly; he looked utterly perplexed.  Which was pitiful, but also completely ridiculous.

I mean, please.

What kind of kid doesn't like SAND?  

I figured he just needed encouragement.

So I went over to where he was and tried demonstrating how much fun it was to hold it!  Let it slip through your fingers!  Burrow your hand down into it!  Smooth it out!  Pile it up!  Seeeeee??  Sand is so fun!

He just scowled, shook his head in a vigorous NO, and looked at me disparagingly, like, "Really, Mother, I thought you were better than that."

(This is also precisely how he reacted to grass when we got him home from New York, though.  And mulch didn't go over much better.  But now he'll play in and with both.  So I think he just needs a little more time.  He's merely a skeptical, cautious little fellow...)

Case in point: it took a LOT of persuasion to get him to enter this green tube.  (And by that I mean, I finally just picked him up and put him in it.  Twice.)  And then it took a lot of cheering to get him to actually keep crawling and go through it, even when I ran around to the other end.   But after he did it a few times, he seemed to really like it-- loved the windows, loved following Josephine through it.  So see, it is technically possible for him to have fun!  He simply has to warm up to the idea!

I just don't know that I can trust all this playground business...