In order to let Paul crank up his efforts of getting the back ready for insulation this Thursday (and because our A/C was suppose to be installed) — I took the kids to Baton Rouge for the day on Saturday. Although the A/C guy never showed up (thank goodness for the unseasonably cool weather… high 60s, low 70s?!) Paul enjoyed a full day of work in glorious weather and I had a great time with the kids.
We went to Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center. The map suggests it’s just south of the downtown area. This was the first time I’d ever been to Baton Rouge, so all I can tell you is that it’s smack in the center of suburbia — the Mall of Louisiana is about a mile up the street (it’s bigger than my entire college campus, and I went to a Big School) and about 2 miles from the Super Stores strip mall, a terrifying maze of parking and mega centers.
The Swamp Center is 101 acres of preserved land in the middle of all that madness. The Center offers a fun learning center with an impressive collection of snakes and turtles, including a monstrous Burmese Python that could pop up, swallow me whole, and lay back down without showing even the slightest lump down it’s massive body.
We walked two of the three walking paths (roughly a half a mile and a quarter mile, respectively). The paths are a mixture of wooden paths over the swamp and marshlands and gravel paths through the woods.
We knew that this (above) was a sweet gum because there were collections of them in the children’s “hands-on” section. Also in the collection were nutria pellets, raccoon skulls, various leaves and seeds, layers of shed snake skin, and feathers.
We saw a bunny, who sat close by in a bush until Kate realized what it was and shouted, “HI BUNNY!” When he hopped away, she followed that with “BYE BYE BUNNY!” Dragonflies were plentiful. I played with the 28-135IS on the 10D… (although I haven’t used the IS yet, silly me).
This is sort of what the park looks like, with several ravine sections that make the walk more dramatic than expected. The kids LOVED it. Will was pretty hot on a hunt for alligators… but was happy with the many tadpoles we saw. This is one of the first times I can remember truly seeing tadpoles — complete with tails and little legs growing from their round bodies — swimming around. I feel like I have to have seen this as a kind, hanging around in Dorchester Creek digging for sharks teeth at every free moment*, but I can’t remember.
This is close to the head of the paths, near the Center. The kids spent a lot of time checking out the bugs here.
Inside, there was a fun play area with a tent, books, and a ton of stuffed toys. The kids dove in and I read them (okay, Will… Kate was too busy) a few nature books about turtles. At one point, Will dove into the tent and bonked Kate in the face. He pulled back crying “OW!” and I realized from his cry that he’d collided with Kate (I was behind Will and didn’t have the side view to be sure), so I held my breath waiting for Kate’s wail… which didn’t come.
Instead, she scrunched up her face, looked uncertain, wiggled her nose a few times, paused… and then carried on as if nothing had happened. Okay, I thought, it must not have been that bad.
Thirty minutes later, when we left, her nose was red. I thought maybe she had a sunburn? Or maybe rubbed her nose too much with the sunglasses she’d be playing with? The head-bonk was already out of my mind, since it had been such a non-event; it didn’t even occur to me that this could be the source of the red. It was still red when she went to bed, color deepening, which is when I remembered the collision.
Then this morning, she woke up with a HUGE PURPLE WELT on her nose. Two, actually. And eyes slightly black and blue. She looks like she was in a bar fight. Or been burned on the face. We figure that the bonk must have bruised cartilage in her nose? Maybe? She is completely fine otherwise… no tenderness when we touch it, blows her nose fine, etc. We’re not sure about what we should do, if anything, but are sure that our girl is One Tough Cutie Patootie.
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* In want of documenting this somewhere, my neighborhood friends, my brother, and I spent countless hours of our youth riding our bikes down to the Creek to dig for stuff in the water. It started when I got bored waiting around my brother’s soccer games and practices… the YMCA and soccer fields were right by the Creek, which we had to cross over to ride home. So I could hang out there until everyone was done and then ride home with the family. You could just walk along the sides of the river and find little teeth in the dirt. My brother and I still have a tackle box filled to the brim with teeth and bones. It was fun and we spent a lot of time digging and searching and storytelling and imagining. One of the teeth was so impressive, that we took it to the Charleston Museum to ask about it. The museum was REALLY interested, asked where we got it from, and took notes. About a week later, a team of student scientists was there and had corded off our favorite spot… there was a big lump we liked to sit on to dig in the water at our feet. Turns out that big lump was a huge prehistoric turtle shell. The only one ever found intact (at least, at that time). Story ran in the paper and everything.
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