July at Home, Part I -- Blue Smoke Park (and Keira talks)

We spent many July days just like this...

We'd wake up, have breakfast and try to get out of the house before the heat of the day hit. We realized after a few tries that we needed to get out of the house and play hard at a park to ensure a smooth remainder of the day. Eli thinks he wants to stay home all day long: doing puzzles, crafts and having an "at home day." But, his behavior says otherwise. We discovered after trying a few parks, that in the summertime, there were only two parks that were bearable, even in the morning -- Blue Smoke and the Dendi's New Park in Downtown Senoia. Eli usually chose Blue Smoke. Keira loves going to the park, too. Park is one of her new words.

Speaking of Keira's new words, I'm going to digress a little and jot down some of her words -- she is talking a lot. She starting talking early, and then seemed to plateau a bit, even seemingly losing some of her first words. Now, her vocabulary has exploded once again. Many of her words represent entire categories. She says "bow wow" which does mean dog, but frequently means other animals, too. She says "ba-bu" or "va-vu" for vaccuum, which does mean the vaccuum, which neither she nor her brother are fans of. But, babu also means motorcycle, blender, garbage disposal, lawn mower, leaf blower, blender, coffee grinder or any other noise making device. She says "apple" VERY clearly (I think it's her clearest word), it means apple and most other food, too, which by the way she still isn't eating a whole lot of... She says "eye" which means eye as well as other body parts, buttons or small round things. She says "bottle" which sounds a bit like "bah-woo" it means bottle, water, container, cup, glass or mug. She says "guitar" which sounds like tar, which means guitar mostly, but she pointed at Dendi's piano the other day and said it, too.

She also says words that mean just one thing and have a predictable and understood meaning. For the family she says "Momma" or "Mommy", "Dadda" or "Daddy", "E-I" "Kee-Cat" (Kitty Cat) or "Kodi", Babo and Bapa (which refers to the grandfathers or grandmothers). She also says "ball", "baa-oo" for balloon, "hot", "booo" for book, "ow" which she says when she hurts herself or hits someone -- something we're struggling with... She says "boom" when she falls or when she bumps into something, usually gleefully. She says "car" which sounds a little like tar -- she loves her little red Cozy Coupe car which she can open, climb in and push backward. She says "bike" which sounds a little like buy -- another ride on toy she's getting fairly adept with. She says "spoon" which sounds a little like poo. She says "bath" which sounds a bit like bah and remains one of her very favorite things. I know I've missed some, but you get the idea.

And now, back to Blue Smoke Park, one of her beloved "park"s or parr...

Here are the pictures. First, Keira standing on and playing in the wood chips.





A few pictures of Eli on the slides



Now for my favorite of the bunch, the swings -- I love Keira's expression while Eli pushes her, it's worth the blurriness.





And, finally, one of me and my girl -- she's definitely still a Mama's girl.


After the park we'd often go to Starbucks or Senoia Coffee Company. The boys would work on puzzles while I walked around with Keira. Sometimes she'd doze in the sling and sometimes I'd follow her around. Then, we'd go home for lunch and nap. In the afternoon we'd go to Kedron Fieldhouse Pool to practice Eli's swimming and veg by the pool. What a charmed life we lead!!!