Outside

Weather has been cold and gray on most recent weekends, or we had plans (holidays, birthdays, etc). But today was relatively balmy; 40s or maybe even 50. Emily was home and Kate was napping, so Jack and I went outside.

In the backyard, we ran around with the football. Jack was Brett Favre, I was Percy Harvin. (These are the two Vikings names Jack knows.) I tossed it to him, sometimes he came close to catching it. He tossed it to me, it crashed into my ankles. We both wore winter hats and jackets. The ground was cold and a little wet, but not bad.

After a little bit of tossing the football, we tossed a little plastic parachutist into the air. It worked better than inside, but the guy wasn't heavy enough to throw it that high. Or I'm getting old, one of the two.

We played tag, kind of, running circles around and around.

We walked to the office park to feed ducks. There were lots of them; the pond was mostly frozen over except for the fountains in the center. The ducks congregated near us as we approached, hopefully. We had a little bread, which was quickly distributed, before the ducks got too aggressive. They seemed hungry; winter. May need to go back soon.

We walked around the water on the pathway. I picked up a rock and showed Jack how the ice wasn't safe to walk on for us, since the ice was thin. "How can the ducks walk on it?" he asked. Well, I said, they're a lot lighter than we are.

We walked up a little staircase and sat on benches. Office workers probably had their lunches there, I explained. I told him not to lean back. We sat in the sun on the benches.

We walked around to the other side of the pond. Looked down on the ducks. Tossed a couple of rocks at the ice. Threw a couple of leaves into the water.

Leaving the water behind, we found some snow. I picked up a snowball and gave him a mischievous look. His eyes grew wide but he laughed. "NO, Daddy!" I tossed it into the water.

We made a tiny snowman. We used little sticks for his eyes, another twig for his mouth, leaves for his arms. I said, OK, let's go. Jack went up to it. "I'm going to kick it over!" I said, aw, no...then, well, OK, whatever. Jack stood close to it, then changed his mind.

"Goodbye snowman!" he said as we walked away. Goodbye, snowman. We walked home. In the yard, we made another tiny snowman, ran around a little more, then went inside for some water and a snack.