Nature

Warning for Grandma Maridawn: Some of the following images may contain large oversized hopping insects. Viewer discretion is advised.

Lately I've been reading, which is generally a good thing,

but sometimes it makes me a little overzealous...

and in the case of this book,

my enthusiasm for getting Ezra outdoors has blossomed 20 fold!!

Except for one little problem...

HE HATES IT!!!

Look at the ornery face on this boy!

He is so MAD to be surrounded by gloriously green woods!

(p.s. I didn't TOUCH this picture in photoshop. It really was this beautiful)

To be fair, I pulled him away from this....

...to go tromp in the hills and explore nature.

My brain honestly thought that the concept of inspecting huge, gnarly-barked trees...

...like this...

..and tossing things to float down a creek like this; would trump plastic slides and rubber playmats.

I was wrong.

Which leads to the beginning of this story.

It all started with a box.

For letter I week, Ezra built an insect box that Grandma Maridawn sent us MONTHS ago.

He read the instructions...put on his safety gear (for about 30 seconds) and got to work.

Boy did he work!

It was adorable to watch him push things into place...

...line up each tiny nail...

...and hammer away like a mad man!

He was so proud when he got done!

Look at that smile. =)

Of course, it needed some decoration...

...and a few practice runs thanks to the help of one of his sticky frogs.

With the sun shining, he packed his bag with his "insect finding gear" and was ready to go a'huntin'.

Once we got to the park there weren't many creatures to be found.

(Surprising?

I mean honestly...where would a bug possibly be surviving in a rubber bottomed, plastic structured, concrete surrounded playground?)

So he played make believe with his new GIANT grasshopper...

...but wait....what's that??

AN ANT!!

Hurry, scoop him up gently and lets put him in the box!

Oh wow!

Look at his antennae and his many little legs....

The observation went on like this until it was time to release the new friend back into the wild (aka: the tan bark he'd been rooting around looking for food in).

So why would my budding entomologist turn into such a GRUMP once we left the confines of his playground to enjoy a little free exploration in nature....

My theory is...

he's two, and NO ONE is going to tell him what to do!

HA!

Last night, about 10 minutes in to our nightly family walk (which we literally dragged him out of the house to participate in) he grumpily stuck his lower lip out and whined to Daddy,

"All done with nature?!?"

Hmmmm.....maybe I need to make my motivations a little more opaque. =)