Soccer! (and fossils)

Today marked the start of another season of Lil' Kickers and sporting a jersey for the first time was Eileen. 

We knew she was ready.  She started commandeering Linus' soccer apparel.  Linus is still wearing the uniform he got when he was 20 months old.  It's a little shocking to see how much he has grown in two years.

Linus' first soccer class, 20 months old and rocking a binky.

Eileen, 21 months, in Linus' soccer clothes. I hope she doesn't mind that they no longer give out shorts with the jerseys.

We don't do soccer year round.  One, it's too expensive, and two, I don't want a preschool burnout.  I try to limit their extracurricular activities to one per season.  Day one was a success.  Linus worked hard and was dripping sweat by the end of class.  Eileen and I did the Bunnies class.  She was a little clingy at first, but warmed up by the end of things.  I think it helped that she had Coach Kat, who Linus has now had as a coach twice.  As we left for the car, Eileen said, "Soccer class had fun."

She pretty much refused to put down the water bottle and carried it for most of the class.

After soccer, we decided to have fun with one of Linus' new interests, fossils.  Linus recently started collecting and now has a special chest to hold them.  He currently only has three.  The coolest is a 15 million year old shark tooth given to him by my chiropractor.  We headed over to the Burke Museum at UW to see some fossils. It's first Thursday of the month, which means free admission to almost all the museums.

Please touch tables with fossils, native art, and pictures for coloring.

Dinosaur fun in the education area

Linus was so excited to see everything he ran through the museum.  I tried to get him to slow down a little and check out all the cool stuff in the education area--dinosaurs, puzzles, books, please touch fossils and rocks, you know, things he loves. Linus compromised and played for ten minutes before insisting on moving forward.  We only got to spend a little time downstairs with the People of the Pacific exhibit.  Eileen was getting melty so we had to head home.

It was a fun morning and I enjoyed the three hour nap Linus took as a result.  Good times.  My goal is to try to take advantage of the first Thursday of the month at least three times this year.  We'll see what happens.