From The Normans: Daddy's Sock Hand

Yeah, yeah, Daddy. So you had surgery. So you have an owie. Read me a book, dammit.

Nonna and Grandpa came to visit, so they could watch Dexter while John had a cyst removed from his wrist. I thought maybe we'd give John some peace and quiet on Thursday morning by taking Dex and Nonna to Longwood. Turns out leaving Grandpa home didn't exactly promote the "peace and quiet" idea. But Nonna and Dex and I still had fun!

A warning to you - there's twelve billion pictures here. It's OrchidFest. I like orchids a lot. I like my kid a lot. My kid likes water a lot. Nonna and I like taking pictures a lot. You get the picture... He-he. I'm funny!

Orchid Boy. Always with the suspicious look on his face. Dear Dex - the whole world is not out to get you. I promise.

Shall I look at THIS water? Or THAT water? Why can't I touch this water, again? Maybe I can touch THAT water.

Pretty orchids. And... these purple flower thingies.

I smile as I remember Dex hauling ass down this row of flowers, naming the colors. Ow-an. Dae-dow. Ite. GO!

Mediterranean Garden. I liked it best in November when we came with Suzanne. Since then? Just kind of MEH.

Poo-poo orchid. Love the striations.

We were the only people in the Palm Garden. We took advantage by standing on opposite ends of the circular sidewalk and running the child ragged.

I also put his ass to work. Here, kid. Push this. Thanks.

Fake blue orchids. Not really fake. But not a natural color. They injected blue in to the roots before the flowers bloomed and BAM! Blue orchids.

Orchid Cascade = more water Dex can't touch.

Crackers. Water. Life is good.

Still good.

Cute yellow and pink? Purple?

I'm not sure why, but Dex liked sitting on this rock. We got some cute shots.

A little "behind the scenes" look at my photo taking.

I got a chance to jump in for a couple shots with my boy. Thanks, Nonna!

CHEESE!

Nonna grabbed a rare "Dexter sitting still" opportunity to grab some cuddles.

And you can tempt him in to standing still for longer by showing him pictures you took on your camera. He LOOOOOVES seeing pictures of himself.

Of course we found the leaping water. Of course there was much running involved. Or course the child giggled like mad. Enjoy!

Nonna enjoys watching. And she took awesome video. Which I haven't uploaded yet. Maybe next post.

Hi Nonna. Can't stop to talk. Have water to chase.

Watching. Waiting.

YAY! Water!

We also sprayed water on each other here...

Huh. I wondered what she was drawing. I had to leave the room before she drew the rays of sun.

Dex rocked his sharing skills here. Well, first he stared at the kid hogging the sticks until he about burned holes in his head. Then he beat away on the xylophone for a while. And THEN he shared.

He even shared with Nonna.

We liked the little red chairs. They were 1) comfy, 2) red, 3) within arms reach of lots of musical things that made cool noises, 4) in front of the cute stained glass sun.

Feeling the bumps on the wall. I can't remember if Dex decided these were BIG BUMPS or ii-ii bumps.

We played hide-and-seek in here. This is Dex. Hiding. Good, eh?

So we were done, right? We were walking out to find the stroller. And I thought I'd get away with just changing Dexter's long sleeve shirt, because he didn't get too terribly wet. And, yeah. You know how that always goes...