Second Week of Summer

The second week of summer was fun.  We went to the bookstore for story time, went to the playground, got new books at the library, ran in the sprinklers, and had two little girls over for a play date.

Yesterday, we went to the Three Rivers Arts Festival, a yearly tradition.  It is held the first two weeks of June, every year, and every year, you could bet your life savings that it will rain those two weekends.  No kidding!  Sure enough, this year was no exception.  Luckily, it was so hot and muggy that the off and on rain felt pretty good.

(Since the fountain at The Point wasn't on, we needed to find another fountain to complete the tradition!)

(If you are going to be downtown, you must make time to chase a few pigeons).

Last year, Dylan was still in a stroller.  This year he was on foot, which meant that we looked at a lot less art.  Maneuvering a 3 1/2 year old boy who likes to touch everything through a huge crowd, and in and out of art booths without having to buy something is no small feat!  I did manage to see an artist whose style I loved.  She takes photographs and digitally alters them with Photoshop and she also manually alters Polaroids while they are developing to get a really cool effect.  I think I'm going to have to play around with Photoshop to see if I can figure out how she does it.

(We got to see Miss Rosa, from PBS Kids, who told the kids a story about going on a safari.  Dylan has been recreating it all day today).

My favorite part of the day was when we went to an African Rhythm and Dance workshop.  Three lovely ladies and a guy taught the adults and children a traditional African welcome song, and a dance.  Okay, it was mostly just the kids who were brave enough to go up front and dance.  Do you want to guess if my attention loving kid was front and center?

(The three ladies in black shirts were leading the workshop.  Look closely.  Do you see Dylan?)

I don't know if he will always dance so free and uninhibited, but for now, he dances with pure joy and abandonment, and I LOVE it.  At one point, the ladies starting leading the kids around the tent in a conga line.  Dylan had his back to the crowd, facing the drummer, in his own happy world of dance and didn't notice.  He was the only one up there dancing for a while!

Watching the little kids dancing, I thought "How awesome it must be to have no inhibitions!  To simply do what makes you happy, not caring how you look, or who is watching".  I wonder why we lose that, as we get older?  When, and why does that happen, and how can we stop it from happening?  I really hope Dylan keeps dancing.  He makes it look like so much fun, who knows?  I just might join in.