Globes, Gross, & Girly Gifts

Thankfully the only thing those three things have in common is the fact that they all start with the letter G.

Tonight we made a trip into the 'burbs to pick up a bargain from Craigslist. I got it in my head that a globe would be a great birthday gift for Sam who loves looking at maps & asking where certain animals live. A search last night yielded a couple of possibilities. I threw out an offer for one that is pretty fancy, but the price was right. She accepted my offer (see tweet from today) so the kids piled in the van and away we went.

I hid it under a towel in the back of the van so the birthday surprise wouldn't be ruined and we drove off in search of a park I used to frequent when I was a kid. Shoots and Ladders is well known in the Cities and was pretty busy for 7pm, not that I blamed anyone - it was beautiful out. The plan was to let the kids play until they couldn't climb through another tunnel or up another ladder and then let them zone out with a DVD on the way home. (A rare treat as the DVD player only comes long when we are going to be in the car at least an hour) It's nice to keep them from falling asleep and ruining bedtime/naptime.

So I found a spot that had a decent view of most of the park and sent the kids on their way.

They didn't climb up a single ladder.

I got up and helped them map out their route with my finger drawing a path in the air. They chose to wander around aimlessly instead. Finally I told them they needed to start playing on something or we were going home. Julia chose to play in the sand. Nice. We have sand at home. We didn't need to go out of our way to stop at a really cool park to play in the sand. I encouraged them one more time to find something to climb on or we were leaving.

I returned to my spot on the rubbery surface and watched Julia go straight back into the sand. Sigh....the little voice in my head said to get my butt up off the ground and go in the tunnels with the kids. So that's what I did. The kids were more daring. We had fun. We explored. I tried not to look down when we were way up at the top. We got our butts wet when the kids who were over in the water features came through the dry part of the park.

I had to call it quits when wet boy swim trunks dripped water in my hair. Twice.

It was worth it.

On the way home Julia starting asking for her birthday present.
"What do you want for your birthday Julia?" I asked.
"A little puppy like Sammy has," she replied.
"Anything else? I prompted.
"Toys"

Of course.

Anyone have a Tomboy gift idea for an 3 year old's birthday coming up in October?