Morning in the Woods

We had a cracking storm last night that dropped temperatures down to the 60s this morning, so when Simon went off to work (his daily drudgery) Thomas, Frederick and I went to a nearby park to kill time (and, of course, enjoy being together). Thomas was really pissed about going since he stays up until 2 or 3 in the morning and doesn't appreciate being dragged out of bed at 10. But drag him I did and there was even more dragging when we got to the park. (He proposed staying in the car but I countered that with a few suggestions of my own.) After milling about the swings miserably Thomas said he wouldn't be opposed to wandering in the woods with Frederick and me, so off we set. And here they are miles later (not really), Frederick barely containing his excitement and Thomas trying very hard to look like he isn't actually enjoying himself when he actually is starting to.
I let Thomas loose and he climbed to the top of a ravine. Frederick and I slid to the bottom and examined small creatures in the tiny river. Eventually Thomas came back. This afternoon Thomas told me there weren't enough pictures of turtles on our blog, so here is another. The holy grail of turtling is managing to get a good picture of one of them "basking" on top of the log. The little bastards can hear everything (despite having no external ears--it's a bit of a mystery) and always flip themselves into the water whenever I get close enough to get a picture of them.

Red-Eared Sliders

Thomas has been begging for a small creature to have in his room for many months. We have been avoiding the issue ever since the crab incident (shudder) and hoping that it would just go away. But when the other day we were visiting our friend Stephanie, who just had a baby last week, Thomas was very excited to see an aquarium on her kitchen table with three turtles in it. She was excited to learn that he wants turtles (or anything difficult to keep alive when neglected) because they were off-loaded onto her and she didn't want to deal with them and a new baby. So we promised to pick them up the next day and learn all about them. And so, once we brought them home, we immediately set off for PetSmart to get everything they would need to settle in happily--turtle food, filters, a fake floating log ($50!!!!) and, us being academics, a book for Thomas to read to learn all about turtles. It took us about an hour--complete with screaming and fighting--to set up their house. Here is one (as yet unamed because, apparently, Thomas doesn't want to name them until he knows each of their personalities):
Here is another one:
Thomas learned to his delight that these are not, in fact, painted turtles as I thought but red-eared sliders who can grow to be 11 inches long (relief: painted turtles can grow up to 15 inches long) and can live for 30-40 years. Hmmm. On the up side, they are local and will survive quite well if tossed out of a car window into a nearby nature reserve pond. Something to think about.

Frederick Learning to Swim

Last year the goal was to get Frederick comfortable with climbing in and out of a pool by himself. This year, the goal is full-fledged swimming. He and Emily go to her mom's house every day the weather permits to practice jumping in, going under water, arm strokes and kicking. Here he is in our pool just relaxing.
Here he is, showing off how well he is about going underwater. He says to himself, "Hold the nose" just before going under.
Note bubbles he is blowing!
Now he's just being silly, which is his modus operandi. During his music lesson yesterday, he was especially silly. Every time Mike asked him to do something, he would stare at Mike with his eyes bugged and his mouth open wide, pretending to have no idea what to do. I figure in any given 60 minute lesson he weasels out of at least 10 minutes of work.
Having too much fun.