Ottertoberfest at the Zoo

Doug's company picnic will be at the Zoo this year, so I went to the website to see what's happening. Turns out that for the next couple of weekends it's Ottertoberfest at the Saint Louis Zoo.

You get a traditional German biergarten with all your standards, plus "kids can join the parade through the Zoo and attend the Root Beer Keg-tapping Ceremony at the end." They're supposed to have tracking games, puppet-making, coloring...it sounds like a kick. Great timing!!!

On the side of BAD timing, we missed the Cub Scout intro-thingy that we've been planning on attending for WEEKS. ARRRRRGH! I'm SO mad about that, you have NO idea. For some reason I've had it in my head that the meeting was on Monday, so sure enough, we ended up missing it. As as soon as we realized it we went tearing up there, only to find that they'd packed up and gone already. There were some Girl Scouts there, and one of the women helping to run that meeting was able to give us some information. I wrote an email to the head of the thing as soon as we hit the door and it turns out that we missed getting the application and some paperwork. I pulled the application off the net, filled it in and had to wait for Doug to sign it, and we ended up driving to the guy's house and dropping it off.

*blush*

They have a slightly older son, "Joe," who has the same name as a slightly older boy who attended Kindermusik with David when he was a tiny toddler. David soon learned that it would be wise to buddy up to "Joe," because the older boy knew how to open doors. 'Bye, Mom. I'm following Joe, we're outta here.

I also learned today that K-Mart, Wal-Mart and Target do NOT sell Cub Scout uniforms. Nor does Sears. eBay has a few items, but they tend to be overpriced, and Craigslist not only didn't list any, but two people were already REQUESTING uniforms on the list. And Once Upon A Child accepts uniforms, but they're (A) tucked in with all the other clothes and (B) not likely to be there, since we were JUST AT O.U.A.C. So I officially gave up and went to ScoutStuff.org. Yes, expensive, but...what are you gonna do, you know?

OTOH, by missing the Scout meeting I wasn't able to volunteer myself for yet another position. My neighbor down the street has signed up to be a Den Leader for her son's Cub Scout meetings. I thought with horror about the possibility, and firmly told myself I wasn't allowed to do such a thing. I already have all that LLL stuff I'm volunteered for, PLUS I homeschool, PLUS I try to run the business, PLUS I'm taking classes right now...you know, there really ARE just so many hours in a day. As a funny aside, my neighbor (unbeknownst to me) attempted to get David into her son's Scout Pack. Apparently the woman running it freaked out and said there was no way she could allow us in because we're homeschooling. Hmmm. Funny, I emailed the head of the BSA Area Council out here and those folks didn't have any problems with it, and in fact I can say that they have been MORE than welcoming. (Of course, I got most of my info from another homeschooler whose son made Eagle Scout a year ago or so, so I KNOW it isn't impossible. The other woman is simply insane.) I love the idea of Scouts...always have...but I simply have too much on my plate right this second.

I had to be up somewhat early today as it was the big trade-off at the park for toddler activity kits. There are several moms on an email list that I'm a member of who have toddlers. And toddlers require such a huge investment of time, most of us are wondering WHAT we can do with them. Some moms need the toddler occupied while they go over stuff with the older siblings...I thought about my LLL moms and the fact that many of them need the toddler entertained while they take care of the new baby. So we all sort of hooked up together at the suggestion of someone else and each of us got assigned a particular craft or activity. We had 18 people sign up for the project, so each of us had to put together 18 Ziploc freezer bags of whatever activity we were assigned. I got "Can You Remember?" which meant making an activity of an 18-page booklet and 10 separate cards. The kid tries to duplicate the pattern of things he sees on the booklet page with his cards...and of course, I needed to make 18 of those sets. I was up at midnight using zip-ties to bind the pages together and sticking labels on the bags. However, we all met at the park today and someone brought 18 paper grocery bags...so we went around the table and put one of our Ziplocs into each paper bag, and everyone walked away again with a paper bag full of 18 different, brand-new toddler activities to take home. I don't know what all is in there...matching games, and stacks of foam letters, plastic grids with shoelaces (sewing?), plastic spoons with upper and lowercase letters written on them...we just have to find out how Lauren feels about all of it now! The idea came from the Toddler Activity Bags book.

We're MOSTLY set up for our trip to Canada...we got a hotel booked, anyway, and I'm loaded down with maps from AAA. We'll also be close to Niagara Falls. We informed David of this fact and he paused for a moment and then burst out, "NIAGARA FALLS?!? Dat...Dat...Niagara Falls is ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FEET TALL!" Er....yes, it is. Well, 170 feet, according to their website. That boy latches onto the weirdest stuff. Anyway, we told him we'd go see Niagara Falls and he totally freaked with joy. They also apparently have some kind of castle that I thought might be cool to visit, and I don't know what all. We're looking over our options at the moment, including some kind of tour bus that doubles as a boat. Doug rolled his eyes and said, "Oh, Lord. David would just bluck himself."

In fact, he probably would.