Indy 500


Rain, rain, go away

I prefer seeing 200 laps and a finish under green to seeing 166 laps and a finish under yellow, but hey, at least we didn’t have to drive down there a second (or third, or fourth) day. Plus, our seats in the Paddock are covered so we didn’t mind the rain (except when we had to walk back to the car).

Now to figure out what to do for next year. Request Paddock seats closer to turn 1? Camp overnight? Decisions, decisions.

Playdate at Leslie Science Center

Today we met Angie and Sofia at the Leslie Science Center in Ann Arbor, MI. Twice a month, the center has a special set of activities geared toward 1-3 year-olds. We went on a nature “hike” and explored stuffed animals in trees with the provided binoculars. Katrina really got a kick out of that! Then the kids got an opportunity to dig into huge piles of mulch and search for bugs using a magnifying glass. Normally Katrina loves digging into our mulch around the house and spreading it about, but once the tour guide mentioned “bugs,” Katrina lost interest in inspecting the mulch.

She’s recently developed a terrible fear of bugs. We’ve tried to talk nicely about them in our home as we gently scoot them out to our front porch, but now that isn’t working anymore. The other day along came a spider and krept up to Katrina and she screamed bloody murder. Maybe the fear of bugs is just something that occurs naturally for some kids.

Another big hit for the youngins was the sandbox. Surprisingly, Katrina was willing to play with the faux bugs - no problem! I must have turned my head the second that Elena decided to “drink” the dirt that she had placed into a plastic cup. She’s played in sandboxes numerous times without experimenting with sand’s edibility. Why did she have to pick really nasty, most likely poop-infested dirt?

After looking at the critters (hawks, owls, turtles, fishies, etc.), we drove over to a really nice park in Ann Arbor. Unfortunately, since it was near a river, there were many Canadian geese ready to engulf our meals as we innocently ate our picnic lunches. As we were eating, Katrina screamed out in terror because one of the geese snatched the hummous sandwhich right out of her hand. Poor Katrina! The tears and the crying made me feel horrible for her. I think the goose expected that she was going to feed him since EVERYBODY feeds the geese at this park. I was able to get her to stop crying by having her sit on my lap and eat my breakfast bar. Then we walked over to the goose and said, “NO, NO!” That seemed to help a little.

While the goose fiasco was occurring, I noticed that Sofia had COMPLETELY stuffed her tiny little mouth with cheese. We hadn’t noticed what she was doing because we had been so distracted with Katrina’s epidsode. So, poor Angie had to pull all of the cheese out of Sofia’s mouth so she wouldn’t choke!

Thank goodness there was a great play structure located at the park. All was happy and good with the world again. :)

Katrina and the Tigers

Katrina’s First Baseball Game [Helen’s public gallery at Picasa]

On Sunday, I took Katrina to the Tigers game at Comerica Park. (The Tigers beat the Twins 4-3.) We got there a little late because we took our time at WalkAmerica that morning, but neither of us were bothered by it.

We had great seats — I chose a section near where I sat last year for a coworker’s bachelor party. Katrina mostly wanted to take pictures and eat her piece of pizza (she didn’t want the cherry Icee I got for her), but she did enjoy doing the wave and cheering when everyone else did. (She got confused a couple of times, putting her arms up in the air when the crowd cheered for a good play. I thought that was cute.)

For a few innings we walked around, rode the carousel, visited the store (where I bought her a white Tigers hat with a pink D), and bought cotton candy. After the game, she said her favorite part was riding the tigers on the carousel.