There's no place like home?

Tuesday morning and Diana and I were off to take Amelia to school. Once we had escorted Amelia to her classroom, it was time to return to the car. On our way to the car Diana said, "I don't wanna go home. I wanna see animals." She was very sweet, so I brought her out along the fence that borders Amelia's school so that we could see the animals.

Today we got to see the animals' caretaker bringing fresh water and food for the animals. This made most of the animals happy; in fact, one of the geese jumped into his "bathtub" full of water for a splash almost immediately after it was emptied, rinsed and refilled. (The ducks looked on as they waited their turn.) But many of the birds found the fresh water and feed to be a good reason to assert their dominance over the pen mates. I had no idea that a peahen could spread her rather boring, brown tail just as well as a peacock, but I found out the reason behind her display pretty quickly as she chased a pen mate and pecked at her.

The term "pecking order" actually comes from observations of chickens who chase and peck chickens smaller than they are. Today wasn't a good day to be an immature rooster surrounded by huge hens.

Diana and I tried to find snacks to feed the bunnies and actually found that they liked the green leaves of some nearby weeds. Diana thought it was great fun to feed the bunnies. It was hard to get Diana back to the car.

Once Diana was in the car the first words out of her mouth were, "Don't wanna go home." I assured Diana that we weren't going home just yet and took her to Starbucks. Diana told me all she wanted at Starbucks was chocolate milk, she then proceeded to eat more than half of my morning bun. When we left Starbucks Diana told me, "I don't wanna go home." Luckily for her, I had already made plans (mentally) to visit Home Depot.

Home Depot had almost everything we were looking for, but they didn't have any sage. I recently saw some sage with bright red flowers at a nursery. A few days later, I saw the same sage "all grown up" into attractive bushes. But until I accidentally killed a bush I had nearly killed a year ago (when I transplanted it) I didn't have a spot to put the sage.

As we left Home Depot Diana went through all of the "barns" (storage sheds) assembled in front of the store. On our way to the car Diana said, "I don't wanna go home." I told her that we still had to go to Lowe's to pick up some sage.

Getting Diana away from the fountains in the gardening department at Lowe's was difficult, but we were finally back in the car and on our way. Diana repeated, again and again, "I don't want to go home," but at this point it was time to pick up Amelia at school. Once both of the girls were in the car Diana said, "Don't wanna go home." Amelia agreed, "I don't want to go home either." I took the two of them to the grocery store (where I forgot to purchase peanut butter). Then we finally arrived back home. We didn't have much of a choice at this point - we had to get our groceries home.

At home, Diana helped me plant one of my new sage bushes. I guess home isn't quite as much fun as many of the other places we go, but I'm surprised at how much Diana prefers being out to being at home. Funny thing is: it's still almost impossible to get her changed and dressed in the morning so that we can go out.

Lisa