Leaves

I am obsessed this week with the amazing leaves in our neighbourhood… can’t get enough of tromping through them when we go out for a walk, totally fascinated with the never-ending clean-up job in people’s yards, utterly intrigued by the big trucks and sucky-blowy machinery that the council uses to collect them from the big piles people swept into the gutters over the last weekend and weirding Kazuo out by propping him up in little piles of them every time I get him out of the stroller in one of the local parks for a swing.  He was not sure what to make of them, I thought.

But today provided a perfect opportunity for him to really explore.  It was an amazingly sunny, unseasonably hot day in the Lou (though we do remember it being this warm at this time last year… briefly and strangely), like summer’s last wheezy, desperate gasp.  After throwing together some of Martha Stewart’s fabulous Cranberry Scones using some fresh Wisconsin cranberries I got at the market yesterday, we loaded the pop and all his paraphenalia into the car and headed across town to Tower Grove Park.  Our friends had gone over earlier for a picnic and secured one of the lovely Victorian Rotundas for the party.  When we joined we discovered some wonderful deep piles of leaves and it seemed a perfect opportunity for Kazuo and his new friend Luca to have a lovely leaf bath.

Kazuo LOVED the leaves… he was as happy as he is in his bedtime bath… and pottered about in the leaves like he’d been there all day.

Not a leaf went in his mouth which was extraordinary, but maybe they just felt good… but not tasty?

It was a gorgeous day, and a wonderful way to really become acquainted with the glorious crunchy marvellousness of leaves.  I am grateful for a joyful family outing with friends – often hard work to get there, but oh so satisfying when it all comes together.