Get Out and Play--New Outdoor Stuff

We ran out of room in the kids' area for stuff, but the folks at Melissa and Doug told me to not sit on our new outdoor toys, so we cleared off a cooking table that wasn't showing much life. We moved up the table so it wouldn't be so much a passed-over corridor. Two compliments on the stuff yesterday alone raised our spirits even more than the expected temperature of the next few days. I felt guilty for saying thank you as it's not like we designed it. But the stuff is swell.

This seems like a good time to mention our event on May 24th with local writer Amy Lou Jenkins, whose book, Every Natural Fact: Five Seasons of Open-Air Parenting, is already winning advance praise. Our event will be at the Urban Ecology Center--she's doing another one in Wauwatosa. Here's Bob Shacochis's take:

"Amy Lou Jenkins is the Anna Quindlen of the north woods, the Rachel Carson of the good land of Wisconsin, bequeathing to her son and to all of us an indestructible sense of wonder."

More at her web site.