The Jungle

Let me introduce you to Lily's favorite toy. Her red, wooden ball. It came with a toy we bought her at Barnes & Nobel a few weeks ago. It is a little, wooden geometric stacker toy with three sets of differing shapes in various sizes. On top of the little doughnut-shaped blocks (which stack onto a wooden peg board) was this ball. In all fairness, she does appreciate and enjoy playing with the rest of the toy, but only if I hide the ball. Otherwise all she cares about is the ball. She is especially fond of rolling it under and behind things and getting in a tizzy until I retrieve it, only to do it again.

In light of her obsession with her ball, we took her to a place that would be a ball lover's dream-come-true. The Jungle. No, not that jungle. This one:

And despite the many urban legends circulating about finding dirty syringes in their depths, I am in love with ball pits. They are the greatest playground invention ever! If you don't believe me, just ask Lily. She had to be dragged out after two hours in the pit.

There were other parts of The Jungle

And we had fun in all of those as well.

Except for this one. Well, at first it was a blast. But then Ernie made the silly mistake of putting money into it. He turned a perfectly good car that offered endless joys into a roller coaster of terror. As soon as it started to move, her smile vanished, her eyes got as huge as saucers and her entire body started trembling. After that, every time we passed the car rides she started crying and shaking uncontrollably. And here I was thinking my little girl was fearless

After tearing her away from The Jungle and dealing with a temper tantrum on the way to the car, then going to Circuit City to buy our wonderful new camera lens for a steal (I love going-out-of-business sales), and then dealing with another meltdown because I wouldn't let her climb all over the fun (and potentially dangerous) shelves and other paraphernalia that had (in my opinion) foolishly been left strewn around the store for any passerby to impale themselves on, we went home to try and calm a decidedly unhappy toddler by reading her favorite book and snuggling on the chair. It is called I Love You Because. It is a very cute book and I recommend it to anyone with kids. Lily can't get enough of it.

My conclusion from our whirlwind day is this. While she had a blast at The Jungle, the resulting meltdowns and over-stimulation that resulted in our little outing has brought me to the conclusion that it isn't going to be a regularly-occurring outing. Maybe every once in a while (and only when there aren't two thousand kids, mostly preteen and entirely too enthusiastic, milling around). But definitely not on a regular basis.