Appointment for "Now"

 With the oppressively hot days we had last week, I took Peter to the splash park while the kids were in school.  He had a wonderful time playing with his sand toys in the water and cooling off. 

 When he'd had enough, I decided to take him into the nature center that is in the same park.  They have tons of fun animal displays and activities and I knew he'd like it.  However, covid changes everything and when I got there, I saw a sign out front that said they were only open by appointment. I thought about leaving, but I really wanted Peter to see it. It listed a phone number to call to make an appointment, so I stood there, in front of their door, and called.

    Me:  Hi, I'd like to make an appointment to visit the nature center.

    Office staff member: When would you like the appointment?

    Me: How about right now?

    Office staff member: Ok, let me get the door. 

It was that simple!  As luck would have it, no one else was there.  We were welcomed in and she proceeded to set up all sorts of displays, bring out pre-santized toys and activities, and clean the bunny enclosure so Peter could enter if he wanted.  We were the only ones in the whole place and I thought, "Why doesn't everyone do this?!?" until she said, "I'll take your payment right over there whenever you're ready."  I put on my my best poker face and pretended I'd known all along that this place I'd visited dozens and dozens of times with my other three was no longer free.  I should have realized - no one sanitizes and preps for one guest without making it worth their while.  Oh well, I had one hour to make the most of it and we did.

Peter loved seeing the bees flying in and out of their indoor hive.  You could hear the busy buzzing and he was so excited that he kept wanting to bang on the glass.  I had to grab his hands many times for fear we'd soon have a massive disaster.

Many of the items I remember them having, such as many different kinds of animal furs, were gone because they are not sanitizable, but they brought out lots of other fun toys and activities for Peter to use.  He loved the magnetic building blocks.

His favorite, by far, though, was Twitch, the bunny.  He spent a long, long time with him in his enclosure, gently stroking his back, attempting to feed him green beans (Twitch was defintiely not hungry), and sometimes simply sitting still next to him and watching him.  So sweet.   

The nature center also had tons of other activities and animals I didn't photograph and it was well worth the money, at least this once.  Just really wish they'd mentioned the cost on their sign.

This is the last week of school for everyone and Peter and I have been making the most of our last week with one-on-one time.  He found the perler beads in my closet the other day.  My initial instinct was the shriek "no" at the imminent disaster, but then I thought it might be a really good fine-motor activity as long as it's kept within certain perameters.  I got him a tray and some tupperware and a few perler forms and he had a wonderful time scooping the beads from the bucket into the containers and trying to place them on the forms.  Any that spilled stayed on the tray and he was remarkably careful.  No beads ended up on the floor until he began to tire of the activity.  Then he started to make a mess and I saw it was time to end.

We've also gone swimming a couple more times, once again with Christian.  No trip to the rec center is complete without climbing the big hill out front.

Peter had so much fun climbing up and running down.  Sweet Michigan children deprived of mountains have to find their hills where they can!

Our ward boundaries have recently changed and we now have about 100 new families in our ward.  Consequently, we had a big party at the park to get to know everyone.  I brought along my blind friend and her seeing eye dog, Ava.  Peter couldn't get enough of Ava.  Ava was the dog that Peter "attacked" when he was a baby.   At only a few months old, he reached out and jabbed his fingers into Ava's eye, escaping a mauling only due to Ava's impeccable training.  Ava has never forgotten and is always leery around Peter.  It's pretty funny to see sweet, well trained Ava fighting between staying by her owner, as she should, while avoiding Peter's dangerous fingers.   Eventually Ava allowed Peter to pet her and Peter was willing to go play and leave the poor dog alone.