Erika is fully mobile now. And since the weather is reasonably sunny its time to demand to go outside at all hours of the day. Indeed, she is addicted to the swing. Two hours yesterday despite drizzle, and about 90 minutes today when as it was sunny. She also spent an hour in the back of the neighbor's pickup which was full of a load of planting soil.
Yes, you read that correctly. I came home from work and asked where Erika was. Jackie replied, "Oh, she's in the back of the Protestant's pickup playing in the dirt." First a couple things. We have affectionate names for all our neighbors, but they don't know it so keep it to yourselves. And the Protestant's oldest girl, Melissa, is a "mommy's helper" meaning that we pay her to stop by a couple times a week and play with Erika so Jackie can do other things. Melissa comes looking for work whenever she needs money for more tunes for her ipod. This time Erika came to her because they had a fresh load of dirt.
Anyway, Erika had a fantastic time in the dirt and she was filthy. In the picture here, we have dusted her off, and filled her bucket with warm soapy water in hopes that she will accidently clean herself in some strange reverse process that only works on kids who don't know that you are tricking them to get clean.
Below is a close-up of mama and her babies. 
After looking at all of the animals and having lunch, Erika naturally wanted to swing. and swing. and swing some more. Even though she has sleepy eyes, she still wanted to swing some more. You can never swing too much, you know.
Note that the pink toy, which we have named Jergenblaat, has an exceptionally large "Do not remove this tag" tag, with two smaller auxiliary tags bearing cryptic symbols. This was a real selling point for Erika since that's just the kind of thing she likes to ponder and twiddle. We dare not remove them or it would impact Jergenblaat's positive mojo. We wouldn't want that. 
The Merry-go-round was the only covered attraction. 
Sure the seats were a little wet, but we all had a good time... 
Despite the fact that the pictures don't show it!
Erika is fully mobile now. And since the weather is reasonably sunny its time to demand to go outside at all hours of the day. Indeed, she is addicted to the swing. Two hours yesterday despite drizzle, and about 90 minutes today when as it was sunny. She also spent an hour in the back of the neighbor's pickup which was full of a load of planting soil. 
So we got off lightly with the flu, now Erika has a bad cold - runny nose and cough. She is not a happy camper at all. She is very fond of reading books, though, and we have to go through the pages of at least 20 books per day. She takes this activity very seriously. On the other hand, I am re-purposing the sacred "boppy" from being a customized breast feeding pillow, to being a neck support in a chair that is too soft. When cupcake gets situated, you pick up whatever is in reach and make due. 
The flu passed. I think we got off relatively easy this time. Here we see Erika completely absorbed in television. Not that we plan on having her hooked on the evil glowing box, but it kinda helps out that she can watch it on her own. In case you didn't know, there is a 24-hour network for the pre-school crowd called the Sprout Network. Taken in moderate doses, it works wonders. She is glued to whatever they are showing at the time. On the other hand, I have had just about enough of cute little talking mice/dogs/cats with British accents to last for a life time, but Erika seems to enjoy it all. 
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