Outdoorsy

The Bear is outdoorsy - so says my Dad. It's true. He likes being outside. It calms him. Even when he is already calm and we venture out the front door you can really tell that he's taking it all in - the colors, the textures, the smells, the breeze. We went for a walk the other day and he was looking out the side of his stroller as he usually does and he saw this big pile of prickly balls those prickly things that fall from the Sweet Gum tree. So I stopped and picked one up and handed it to him. He held it in one hand and touched it with his index finger from the other hand and then licked it. I handed him another one and he grabbed it with his other hand and then I explained to him what they were and pointed up at the Sweet Gum tree - who knows if he understood. Then we continued to walk. He held on to those prickly balls for almost the rest of our walk. On another day we just did a lap around the yard and looked at plants and flowers. I let him touch the flowers and leaves; this purple ground cover flower, a camellia and a bamboo leaf. Flowers have really neat and different textures, much different from leaves. He loved the sturdy camellia flower, it really held up within his tenacious grasp.