The Gruffalo and Pees! (Or, Notes on Getting a Toddler Home While Also Realizing You're Not Realizing The Words That are Actually Coming Out of Your Mouth)

Today, Tyler and I made the trek into the city center to go to the Dinosaur Museum. In reality, its official name is the Yorkshire Museum, which sounds a lot more formal and considerably more dull. So, we've taken to calling it by our own nomenclature.

It was the first day of only slight drizzle which then fading to a Zero Tolerance policy of rain in the late morning. After three days of staying within a five minute radius of home, we had to take the chance and walk the forty-five to the center.

Tyler did puzzles and we watched an endlessly still wolf eating a bunny (poor rabbit--but the little guy is never actually fully eaten, which makes explaining to Tyler, "No, no, the wolf is just high-fiving the bunny with his paw and he's actually smiling, not growling" a lot easier. Once Tyler turns three in a couple of weeks, I may have to add a bit more reality to the scene, but hey, you're only two once. There'll be time enough to learn about wolves and bunnies a bit later, right?). 

We also built a few Roman towers that resembled those who once lived in York a thousand years ago. We looked at reconstructions of dinosaur skeletons. We learned our weight in dinosaur-scale: Tyler has recently graduated from a microvenator to a domiceiomimus; and I have remained a Velicaraptor. We played a touch-screen dinosaur game where we learned that Rob Owen came up with the actual name dinosaur and that a T Rex has a very, very, very, infinitesimally small brain.

Afterwards, running around in the massive museum gardens, we noted leaves, prickers, thorns, and nettles (alternately called prickers or thorns). We ran back inside for Tyler to do a poop in the immaculately cleaned Dinosaur Museum bathrooms. (One of the many other reasons I love bringing Tyler to the Dinosaur Museum.)

We ate a couple of samosas purchased at 79p a piece, and then meandered our way through the city and back home.

Once we reached the final five minutes--the long sidewalk that leads to Lesley Avenue--Tyler announced that he had to pee. Announcing a pee-need for Tyler is akin to a sportscaster calling a ballgame and announcing a grandslam. It's no small thing. It's something the world needs to know about.

And so we began to run. But Tyler soon noticed a yellow-berry bush. He stopped. He was intrigued. I wanted to salvage the sidewalk (and perhaps a some dignity) and get home to the potty (or at least our backyard).

We had planned to watch the DVD version of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's masterful book The Gruffalo when we got home. (An incredibly kind gift from Tyler's Aunt Megan and Uncle Matt, Cousin Jacob and Cousin Ava in Texas.) We were both thrilled. How can one not love The Gruffalo?

And so it was that I found myself attempting to hurry Tyler along by yelling with glee the following phrase: "Let's get home quick and watch The Gruffalo and do pees!  Come on! The Gurffalo and Pees!"

And even though I am a thirty-year old man, and even though I do have some sense (however small) of decorum, something about the words felt right. Magical. Fun. Us.

We made it home; we peed; we watched The Gruffalo. We smiled.

Library Walks

A few days ago, Jennifer and I brought Tyler into the City Centre, as it's labeled all around Fulford Road with great arrows on blue traffic signs pointing the way to the pedestrian path along the River Ouse.

It's about a 40-minute walk to the city centre library from our home on Lesley Avenue, and we've learned that if we have enough "digestive biscuits" (seemingly the equivalent of a graham cracker in the States), then Tyler will be able to sit for just about the whole walk.

Jen and I talked about dreams, hopes, fears, and joys here in York, while Tyler punctuated our conversation every now and then with "More cookie! More cookie!"

We saw people of every nationality and social class walking. Old white men with white hair and beards walk; young Asian students walk; middle-aged moms with their kids in tow walk; business men in fancy suits discussing fancy things on their way to fancy lunches walk; Palestinian women walk; Nigerian boys walk--everybody seems to be on the sidewalks, walking to or from the city centre, all the time.

The library walks Jen and I have taken with Tyler are beginning to feel less long, more natural. En route, we're starting to notice things about ourselves and the new world we're living in that having a car might have easily prevented. Instead of honking at the driver ahead for making a left turn without using his blinker, we notice that we're saying hello to people we see on the sidewalks of our life here.

So the library walks into the city have been great.

The library walks home have been in somewhat of a different hemisphere.

They consist of Tyler saying, "All done walk! All done walk!" and then pushing his torso up and out of the stroller in such a fashion that we wonder if we have strapped him in at all. Breakdancing his way up and down, up and down in the stroller, we rush across crosswalks, past afternoon saunterers, and around bicyclists.

Get home! Get home!

We employ all kinds of tactics: Bob the Builder when we get home! Bob! Trucks when we get home! Trucks!

Meanwhile, we watch as the English toddlers and their English moms comfortably and calmly stroll along the sidewalks. Their toddlers don't seem to know this same breakdance that Tyler has learned. And yet, they've had a couple of years' head start of learning to walk long walks to get places rather than zip there in a fast car with music and air temperatures and everything else controlled.

We've been into the city centre a handful of times now, and each time the library walk home becomes a little less like a visit to the dentist's office, a little more like routine.

Maybe a handful of times more, and the walk home will be just as soothing as the walk in.