We're here to burgle your turts!

Phoebe slept in her own bed—and stayed dry!—until 6:00 or so. I helped her go potty and then we climbed back into bed for some morning snuggles and ended up falling back to sleep. She woke up hankering for a trip to the park.

I had a meeting in the early afternoon, but we decided we could do our writing time at the park and our math when we go home (we've finished with our science curriculum for the year and the kids have been working on reports for social studies). So we got up and started getting ready to go right away.

We had fun at the park, and I'm sure the kids would like me to share pictures of the cool stuff they did (and I will) but this post is about the turtle-y awesome walk we went on just before we came home. We decided to just take our ordinary stroll around the pond to see how spring is coming on (very nicely, if I do say so myself). 

Suddenly Zoë screeched, "Is that a turtle?!"

"Is what a turtle?" I asked. 

"That!" she said, pointing to the sidewalk. "I thought it was a rock...but it just moved..."

Lucky for the turtle, she spotted it before we risked its life stampeding past it! It was so tiny—hardly bigger than the little flower petal it was next to.

It's a baby slider. And we decided it was probably safer off the trail so the kids thought they would take it and set it down by the pond. Here's Benjamin with the turtle:

Don't mind their sweaty-looking heads. It was warm and they had been running around quite a bit...but the boys also dumped their water bottles on their heads to help themselves cool down. Here's Alexander with the turtle:

And here's Phoebe having a turn:

The turtle was so cute and tiny, Daddy said it looked like something from Over the Garden Wall when I sent him a picture (he's at a conference in Chicago right now—lucky for him! There was a big storm in the area yesterday so a lot of flights to Chicago were delayed (including his) or cancelled (not including his) so a lot of people who'd planned to attend the conference ended up not being there at all). 

Here's Benjamin reminding Phoebe to keep her hands low to the ground...

That turtle was small but mighty! Its little legs were much more powerful than you'd expect!

And here's Zoë with the turtle (she may have dumped water on her head as well...I'm not sure...I saw the boys do it, but she may have as well):

Because Zoë was the one to spot the turtle she thought it was only fair that she should be the one to carry it down to the (pollen-scummy) pond. They set it down and watched it slowly scoot itself into the water and then dash away. So hopefully it will live to see another day!

While they were down there, Phoebe scooped up a handful of mud that she felt was the exact consistency of play dough. 

First she made a ball:

Then she made a snake...

And honestly, I don't know how she was able to do this without one time thinking about poop (because everyone else was thinking it).

This child, who vomits in the bathroom on a far more regular basis than I'd like...who can only eat molasses crinkles for so long before they "turn into poop"...who has gagged over bits of muffin, just thinking they might be poop... 

(See stories here, here, here, here, and here, for example)

This child was completely fine making this lovely...log...of mud.

Go figure.