March outings

We had a hard start to the new year, and by the end of February I was feeling raw with grief. So in March we tried extra hard to get out of the house and go on some outings to get our minds off of things.

In early March, Mariah accompanied us to Cornell's Lab of Ornithology. It is always a nice place to go, no matter the season. The snow was still pretty deep in early March: it comes up to the seat level of the wooden bench. But on this day the weather was mild, and it felt good to be out in the fresh air.

The lab had an exhibit of paintings featuring endangered birds, and one of the paintings (the small blue heron) was by Oliver's former physical therapist.

We also made a trip to our excellent local library. It was Oliver's first trip to a library. He got his very own library card, and we checked out an assortment of books and music CDs for him. Oliver was momentarily distracted by some books on dinosaurs, but over all he was not very impressed. Hopefully he'll have more fun next time.

We've been reading to Oliver about dinosaurs lately. One of his favorite words right now is "paleontologist." So we thought it would be fun to go to the nearby Museum of the Earth. We elicited a few smiles from him, but he was a bit too young for most of it.

At the end of March we met Sean and Eliza at the Cayuga Nature Center. It is an old building, and not wheelchair accessible, which made me unhappy. For now we could carry the stroller up stairs, but I don't think this is a place we will be able to take Oliver to in the future unless they follow through with plans to make it more accessible.

The day was a lot colder than we realized, and we had to borrow a jacket from Eliza to keep Oliver warm. Ollie was confident enough to be seen in pink! Here is a picture of uncle Sean helping to hold him up, stroller and all, so that he could look at a snake.