Well, I took Nathan to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum last week for some good fun & bonding time while Daddy was home to watch Katie. To our surprise and delight, not only was the new Curious George exhibit completed but they had a real live Curious George and Man in the Yellow Hat walking around the museum! Nathan was so excited when he first saw George: we were sitting at the lunch tables, finishing our sandwiches, when across the way Nathan spotted him. He started calling, "George! George! Hi, George!" I asked if he wanted to go see George and he said "yes." Trying to be a responsible mother, I told him once he finished his sandwich we could go say "hi." So, he started calling, "George! Finish sandwich, George. See you minute, George." (Of course, this was all slurred in his 2-year-old speech but I didn't know how to reproduce that in writing.) When he was done, we walked over to say hi, but as soon as we were close Nathan ran off to look at the nearby motorcycle. Confused, I coaxed him back and we followed after George, who was now by the trains, Nathan calling out, "George! George" as we went. 
As soon as we were close again, Nathan stopped calling, backed into me, then ran to play with all of the trains. This was the best picture I could manage while trying to keep an eye on Nathan.
Since I had no luck with the live George, I convinced Nathan to pose with the statue (the picture up top), but, as you can see, he still wouldn't get too close!
All was not lost, though. Just as we were getting ready to leave, we ran into them again. I was already holding Nathan because I was having a hard time convincing him it was time to go. So instead of trying to run away, he just held onto me tighter. He was still intimidated by what was, after all, a very large monkey but he talked to The Man in the Yellow Hat and even gave George a high five. It was a pretty exciting day.
Here are some other things we did:
We were playing with blocks when Nathan discovered his true ambition to be a weight lifter. Look at those muscles!
Nathan floated in a little boat on a stream in the woods. Notice his loyal dog at the shore:
Last, just a look at how much Nathan loves his trains. This was taken in the large model train they have near the entrance of the museum. The laws of gravity haven't been sent topsy-turvy; I just didn't notice I'd flipped the camera to get a better shot. I hate it when I do that.
For those of you who may have some trouble deciphering my son's dialect of toddlerese, he keeps calling out, "All aboard!"
and again...and again. One day, I decided that it would be fun to try to use all the track pieces. As I got going, Nathan did too and he started placing a few pieces of his own. This threw off my groove a little (as he had the curves twisting in all the wrong ways or hills where I hadn't planned for hills) but thus our new game was born: Now, whenever we pull out the train tracks, I let Nathan start to build for a minute and, as soon as he tires of that and moves on to conducting his trains, I attempt to use every track piece without moving a single piece that Nathan has laid. I love a good puzzle!
Now, with his 2 year-old attention span, Nathan sometimes gets tired of playing with the trains before I do. That is, he gets tired of playing trains by himself while Mom plays with the track. I have to remind myself that the trains are really for him--especially when he *gasp* breaks a part of my track. Luckily, all it really takes is for Mommy to make all the train noises again and we're back in business: bonding as mother and son and enjoying our time together.
