End of Summer Fun

The days after our return from Europe were wonderfully warm and Leon took advantage of the trips to the pool that Bimba took him on. He is not a swimmer yet. In fact, he prefers to only walk around the pool and experiment with the floatation characteristics of various objects ranging from shoes to food containers and only rarely actual pool toys. Leon's always been a cautious observer (rather than enthusiastic adventurer), so we just let him take it all in.

Other activities with Bimba include regular walks around the neighborhood, including a stop at Starbucks where I go work - he now assumes that is what we do, and is not even surprised to see me there. We check in for a little bit and then they are off again to check out the birds and helicopters, both Leon's favorites. Commonly, they end the walk at the nearby playground and just looking through the pictures on Bimba's phone, I thought you could see Leon visibly grow between such visits.

Overall, Leon is doing much better with being away from me and although it is still too much of a cognitive / emotional challenge for him to happily wave bye bye, he will "see me off" (literally) whenever I have to leave. That is a considerable improvement over the first couple of weeks at daycare, for example, when he insisted on getting picked up when he thought I might be leaving and started waving and sending kisses to the teachers to inform them that he is going with me. When that did not work, he got very upset - didn't he make himself clear?? These days, though, he makes a bee line for the snack table or books, usually. There is also a window in the wall to the adjacent classroom, which happens to be Dari's and Leon LOVES to peek in there and look for his big brother, saying :"Duh, Duh" = his word for Dari. And every time at pick-up, he can't wait to go in with me and check out all the big kid toys. Here he is playing with one of my favorites, this super inclusive toy-people set -  I think he might have thought the child in the wheelchair was just fun to push around, but whatever. Their daycare rocks.