Mr. Caterpillar and Miss Hotsling

We are fast becoming bored out of our gourds with this awful heat. We try to get out when it's not ungodly stifling, but we can never stay out all that long because I don't want my baby's death from heat stroke hanging over my head. I try all to engineer all kinds of fancy toddler-entertainment (look, it's a mailbox made out of a shoebox! Let's cut the Einsteins' pictures out of this empty Kix cereal box!). Isaac falls for it for like 10 minutes and then he's bored again, too. I refuse, REFUSE to rescind on the "no TV before dinner" rule. However, I can sense mutiny on the part of the young man who is growing more than a little impatient with me and my lack of things up my sleeve.

So today I broke down and took the boys to the library for the first time since Jacob was born. Isaac and I used to go about once a week -- they have a nice and rowdy kids' section with toys and lots of other toddlers -- in part because our rental house was almost next door. Right before Jacob was born, however, Isaac ran away from me in the library, to the point where I had to ask an observant librarian where he had gone, and this has left me a bit fearful of returning. Bolstered by my new sling purchase and the promise of air-conditioned (and free!) fun, we went.

And it was fine. He stayed with me the whole time like a good monkey, and we found a Wiggles CD to check out as well as a book for Mommy to read while Dada is gone on his uber-trip to the Pacific Northwest.

When we got home, we had a visitor waiting for us on our front door -- this ginormous fuzzy caterpillar.




Isaac was completely taken with how "kee-yute" he was, and I must admit Mr. Caterpillar couldn't have timed his visit any better since we had just read my all-time favorite board book over and over the night before. We did our best not to poke at Mr. Caterpillar, but then Mr. C got this crazy idea to crawl into my pants leg and despite my best efforts to convince Isaac that our fuzzy buddy meant no one any harm, I started screaming like a girl and trying to rip Mr. Caterpillar off before he touched me with his grabby little feet. So thank you, Mr. Caterpillar, for giving us something to look at and while away the minutes till naptime.

Almost immediately after naptime, Dada came home. Despite the heat, we talked him into taking us for a walk down Main Street. I needed my iced black tea and Isaac needed to run around in a circle. Literally, that is what he requested.



I must admit I also wanted to show off my new sling around town. I threw it in the dryer this morning and it shrunk up to a nice and comfy feel. Jacob fits best in it in the "front carry", which takes advantage of his secret desire to become a yoga instructor and also elicited innumerable comments and melty faces from passers-by. I got Dada to take a picture of me and Jacob with our new toy (and me in another Threadless shirt, fittingly, "Geology")



Then we walked around on nearby campus for awhile. Isaac and Dada found an empty basketball court and after they finished chasing each other they laid down together to discuss how certain clouds resembled rabbits.



So we did, in the end, find some fun things to do outside in the summertime in this God-forsaken 90-degree weather. Now let's find some more, shall we?