The Tentscape

Here's what it looked like from inside the tent this morning:

The previous night, we heard coyotes and an owl before we fell asleep.  I think the coyotes were really close.

And here's all our pillows and sleeping bags squished together.  I brought my Kindle, which worked great with my headlamp.  I love my Kindle.  I was reading an essay about Japan after the recent earthquake and tsunami, called Into The Forbidden Zone by William T. Vollman.  It's one of those Kindle Singles, which I think is a great idea because they're often on very timely topics and this one is about 60 pages, too long for a newspaper or magazine article.

Here's Lily this morning at the Dodge Preschool playground.  This is a little tower for the kids to climb into.  A bunch of girls went up there and Lily did, too, but she mostly observed their play.  They were playing Rapunzel, as one of the girls had a wig and dress (yes, I know, yak) from the Tangled movie.  She was perfect for the part, a real drama queen (spoiled brat at times). 

Lily would drift in and out of play with them, and not participate in the drama.  She's very much an observer.  She takes it all in, but often it's intense enough from a distance and she doesn't want to jump in.  Which is how I was as a child.  So I think it's fine!  Not just because I was like that, but really, I'm grateful she's not into the drama.  She does play-acting sometimes, so it's not that she doesn't have an imagination.  But she stays herself.  She doesn't like to do face-painting.  She doesn't really dress up in costume.  But she has a very strong personality.

Here's Lily running after the other girls.  She's always up for a game of chase.  Shortly after this was teken, Rapunzel tripped or something and I think she tore her dress.  Or maybe she just fell in the grass.  But she was wailing like she had a mortal wound, and all the other girls were gathering around her.  Lily stood back and observed.

This grassy area is actually part of their playground, which is so fabulous.  All the playground pieces (swings, tower, sandbox, etc) are spread out in this grassy area, so it's wonderful to run around in bare feet, which Lily did for a while.  I think it also gives the kids some breathing room.  It feels very organic, esp. with things like a garden, a slide built into a natural hill, things like that.

And here's Lily after we got home from camping.  She napped (which she doesn't do much anymore) from 11-2, she was so worn out from all the activity this weekend.  What a great time we had!