Nature Baby Nature

Okay so this weekend I found this blog: http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com/.

I thought her ideas would give us some direction and focus to our outdoor adventures. Yesterday we went on a nature walk down our street. It's so funny what kind of things fascinate my girls. We saw a stream in our front yard...thanks to the 50 degree temps! We followed it to the drain. The girls were amazed that the snow was melting and flowing down the street. At every drain I'd hear...mommy look at this one, do you hear the water? We jumped in puddles and followed a pretend bear to his snow cave. Lily was able to tell me the birds we saw were crows. Now I know that's not too tough, but I am still impressed.

This morning, as we are pulling out of our driveway, there next to the house was a deer! Normally this is how the rest of the story would go...I stopped the car and said Lily look a deer and Lily would look and I'd drive off. But this is how the story goes today...I stopped the car and said look girls a deer. Lily saw it right away, but Bella couldn't. After a few seconds of hearing her struggle, I turned around to get her unbuckled. (I wouldn't normally do this because we are on our way to dance class and if I unstrap her that means I have to re-strap her and we don't have time for that.) Bella got free, stood up, saw the deer and a squeal of glee came out of her. Yes, glee. The deer turned its head, probably wondering what that shreek was, and stared right at us...so we stayed longer (crazy I know, what about dance class?). Then he started walking toward us. I was, I mean the girls were so excited but were really great about staying quiet so they, um I mean we wouldn't scare it. It was only a few minutes and then he turned around and walk away and we headed off to dance class. There was a bonding moment there though.

We went to the library after dance class to find out more about our deer. We got the book All About Deer by James Arnosky. We determined that we saw a White-Tailed doe although Lily thinks it could have been a Black-Tailed doe. I'm pretty sure she's wrong...3 year olds. When we got to the page on deer tracks I, er, we had to go out and check. So out we went and there they were...deer tracks! Can you believe it? I know the way I'm reacting it's as if I've never seen a deer before. But I am having this child-like wonder with nature all of a sudden. We followed the tracks and discovered they were eating off one of our trees, just like the book said. We found some other 'bonuses' the book didn't mention but hey those are the facts of life.

We spent an hour outside today. Amazing I know. We got some sledding and swinging in. Took a 'safari' across Mister John's yard to watch Miss Flo's bird feeders. After this post I'm going to search what kind of bird we saw. My hope is that one day I'll be able to blurt out oh look girls a such and such bird/leaf/flower/animal/etc. But hey we've all got to start somewhere. And I'm right at a 3 year old, um maybe 4 year old level. Perfect!

If I could find our camera attachment thingy, I'd post some pictures. But it's missing right now, so you'll have to use your imagination.