Monday, April 24, 2006

Ducks Do Wonders


Sunday started off rainy, but later in the day the sun poked out and then started to shine bright, so we made a trip to Annapolis, making good on our promise to return to see the boats when everyone was well. Emmett was asleep when we arrived and stayed so in the stroller. Max had been looking very sleepy just prior to arriving in Annapolis. Max has never been one to jump at the chance for physical activity. Add to that being a bit sleepy, and as you can imagine, he wanted to ride in the stroller too. We tried to convince him to get out and walk, but he'd have nothing of it. Moreover he was showing little interest in taking pictures. It was still a little cool and soon Max started to complain of being cold. I told him that if he walked he'd warm up, but he didn't believe it. I piled my jacket on top of him.

Our first stop was Starbucks to get Rebekah her mocha and me a lemonade iced tea. As Bek went inside, I finally convinced Max to take a few pictures, all from the stroller, requiring contortions to get one shot, and finally, though very reluctantly, to get out of the stroller. It was sometime around this time when one of the big boats sounded its horn loudly, waking up Emmett. He looked groggy, and didn't much like the loud sound, but didn't complain. He hates loud sounds, covering his ears tightly and shaking, like it's causing him agonizing pain. He doesn't like loud sounds, that is, unless they are coming out of his mouth - those he seems to be quite fond of. He's got to be the loudest, deepest voiced pint-sized kid around. I love his growly voice, just not when it competes with the fog horns.

We headed over to the water to get closer to the boats. Max, though walking, was grumpy about taking pictures. He didn't want to, he said. Everything turned around when we got to the ducks in this picture. A man there gave Max a cracker to feed them with and he did so enthusiastically. He broke the cracker up to toss pieces in, and as the cracker got smaller he kept breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces. Eventually he had pretty much just a crumb left and he was trying to break that in two. I told him just to toss the rest in. Finally he chose to get out his camera and took pictures of the ducks and then a bunch of pictures of seagulls, catching a number of them in flight. Pretty good stuff. We haven't had time to put it all up on a web page yet.

After some more bird and boat watching and pictures we treated the boys (and me) to an icecream. While eating our cones a passing family talked about going to a playground. Max turned to me and said, as if I hadn't heard anything, "I think I heard someone talk about a playground." We made our way to the information booth which was nearby and Bek asked for directions. On the way to the playground Max turned to me and said, "Dad, you were right. Walking does warm you up!" By this point it was pretty warm anyway, but I wasn't about to point that out. We spent quite a long time at the playground. Max and Emmett really loved it, and Max (and Emmett) were doing lots of running. It was great to see Max getting some exercise. At one point Emmett had a fall that caused no injuries, but scared him a bit. I took him right back to where he had the fall and helped him get across that point. That seemed to do the trick.

Finally, around 5 PM or so, we sounded the 5 minute warning. There was some complaining, but not too much. We decided to go to the Mexican restaurant El Toro Bravo on West street for supper. This location use to have a different tex-mex place that I really liked, but it closed several years back, replaced by El Toro. I'd been meaning to try it but never got around to it. Alas, El Toro proves to be just another generic "Mexican" restaurant with the same menu, the same dishes, prepared pretty much the same as you find at any other generic "Mexican" restaurant. The old place was much better. Also, it proved a bad choice for our boys. It took a while to get our food and the boys balked at their enchilada, though eventually Max did eat some rice. Soon the boys got wild. We had to pack up pretty quickly after finishing our meals, and Rebekah rushed them outside as I paid the bill and packed up.

So ended our day in Annapolis. Except for the El Toro experience, it was a great time, and even that wasn't really that bad. Plus it was completely vomit free and that's certainly something! Max took photos, as did I. We'll get them all up on the web eventually. A certain rather insistent grandmother I know needs to be a little patient with us! :)

1 Comments:

Blogger public_sjj said...

Mom-Mom had posted this comment: "Time seems more urgent after three quarters of a century."

I deleted the original comment because it contained her email address. I don't recommend posting your email address on this message board. I don't think it does that by default! If it does I'll see if I can change that!

4/25/2006 07:05:00 AM  

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