we went to the taste of the valley yesterday to walk around, try some good food, and--surprise, surprise--play in some water! we bought an inflatable kiddie pool for pace to play in this summer, and he isn't interested in it at all. he's played in it once or twice, and since then his response to "pace, do you want to play in your pool?" has consistently been, "no." he's more than happy to take a bath, play with the hose outside, or get wet from the sprinklers on our morning walk, but he does not want to wade around in his little pool. so when we ran across this little outdoor water play area in the center of the riverwoods shopping center, pace's eyes lit up, and he immediately requested to go "pay, dooder!" (play in the water). he was a little hesitant, running around the outskirts of the water for a while before heading in to the middle. the sprinklers turned off and on and gradually got bigger, which fascinated pace, and got him wet unexpectedly a number of times. he eventually dove in, and loved every splash.
we stopped by rocky mountain chocolate factory for a treat. pace walked around looking at everything on display behind the glass counters and saying, "ooooo, wooooowwwww!", and when i asked him what treat he wanted he immediately pointed to a chocolate covered pretzel rod. i asked him, "do you want this one, or this one?", pointing to a milk chocolate-covered pretzel, or a white chocolate-covered pretzel. he very excitedly responded, "dis!" when i pointed at the white chocolate pretzel. to confirm, i pointed again at the white chocolate pretzel and asked, "this one?" he very emphatically nodded his head and squealed, "yah!", grinning ear to ear.
