Crunch, crunch, crunch

Crunch, crunch, crackle. The sound of dry leaves is everywhere and H loves it. It is fall here in California (yes, it feels like fall for those of us who grew up elsewhere in the country). This means lots of nice walks outside and frequent trips to the totpark near our home. Often our park visits start on a blanket on the grass where H gently picks up and examines fallen leaves before crunching them up in his little hands. I am always surprised at the fact that they leaves rarely make it into his mouth since almost everything else does.

After the leaf exploration there is time for H to look up at the trees and watch them sway. He simply love trees. He will watch them out the window of his room, he will smile at them at the park, he just loves trees.

Then H becomes adventurous enough to leave the blanket. He will pick his way across the blanket and onto the grass. It is so funny to watch his expression as he hits 'rougher' terrain. It is clear that he is a baby used to spending his days indoors as he tries to navigate the subtle bumps in the landscape. Eventually he makes it to the sidwalk and we head over to the swings.

With each trip on the swing H becomes more brave. On his first turn on the swing several weeks ago now, he was rather anxious and gripped the handles as hard as he could. The next time he gripped the seat as hard as he could, and so on until our last trip to the park when H got into the swing and just leaned back 'no hands' and enjoyed the ride.