Stark Raving Mad + Summer Love

It's funny how once you become a parent all sense of caring what other people think goes out the window. Suddenly you find yourself walking down the street screaming "AAAaahhhh!!" like a madman along with your one year old. And sometimes you fall victim to the fake out, when he doesn't scream along, so really you're just walking along with a one year old, while screaming like a lunatic. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Or is it just Joe and me? 

I remember when I was younger, if my dad had to go on calls as a firefighter in the middle of the night I would beg for him to turn on his lights and sirens when he left. When I got older I realized that was probably really annoying to all of our neighbors, but he usually humored me anyway. And now that I'm a mom I totally get it - what's annoying a couple (hundred) people to make your child happy? As a parent you don't really think twice about it. Or again, maybe that's just me?

Last night we took Ezzy to the park so he could walk off some energy pushing his lawn mower around. While we were walking along on the sidewalk, there was a young lady, maybe 6 months to a year older than Ezzy, standing on the grass a few feet away from him, just staring at him and chewing on her hand. Ezzy stopped in his tracks and would not take his eyes off of her. We thought he was going to learn to walk right then and there so he could run off to her and they could live happily ever after, chewing on their hands and teething together. After us parents awkwardly said hi to each other a few times, while trying to coax Ezzy away, Joe eventually had to pick up our little lovesick romantic and carry him away, with Ezzy staring wistfully over his shoulder until the girl was out of sight. If you believe in love at first sight, I'm pretty sure that's what we were witnessing (at least on Ezzy's end).

After we dragged him away, we had him practice walking (without the mower) on the park grass, and maybe it was the motivation to run back to his lady love, but he took more steps than he's ever taken before:

On an unrelated note, I've seen some people post their summer bucket lists, which I love reading and taking ideas from, and I may do a formal one in the near future, but for now I'll just keep it simple with the goal of taking Ezzy to as many pools/water parks/splash pads as possible. And, of course, we want to pack in as many outdoor adventures as possible, but we live in So Cal, so that's a year round goal. 

Yesterday I also took Ezzy to a friend's house and he went swimming for the first time (other than when he was two months old and was completely unimpressed with the whole thing). He hated his floatie but he loved standing on the steps, splashing the water (with his tongue hanging out). He also loved "chasing"  his ball around the pool (aka, we carried him), all the while with him kicking his feet and yelling excitedly. I see lots more play dates there in our future.

Linking up with Ashley & Jess for their Little Things series!