feeding the duckies.

lately, kevin and i have been trying to find fun things to do that cost little or no money. today, since the weather was relatively nice, we decided to take sophia to the park to feed the ducks. when we picked her up to leave, she didn’t quite understand what we were going to do, but was willing to tag along. once we pulled up to the park and she saw all the ducks, she was intrigued. the next hour or so, her favorite phrase was “more! more!” – asking for more bread. she preferred that i stuffed each of her pockets with bread crumbs in order to avoid having to ask for more bread every couple tosses. she was not nervous around the birds at all, even the geese that stood 6 inches taller than sophia. she’d stomp right up to them and either chuck a breadcrumb full-force or feed them out of her hand. the geese made a lot of noise and sophia found them very entertaining. her feeding style was very meticulous. she would zero-in on one bird and chuck one breadcrumb at a time. if the bird she’d aimed towards didn’t get that particular piece of bread, she’d yell at the bird that did and then try again. once the bird she was trying to feed actually gobbled up the treat, sophia would yell “yay!” and start the process over again. two-thirds of a loaf of bread and one park trip later, i’d say the duck-feeding excursion was quite a success. however, in the eyes of a 2 year old, she wasn’t quite happy until she was treated to a scoop at baskin robbins. we returned her back to her mommy with bird poop on her shoes and chocolate ice cream on her sweater, pants and t-shirt! all in all, all of us had a great day for very minimal costs. like they say, the best things in life are free (or close to!).