Toren’s latest development: He has figured out that he fits behind our love seat, so he sneaks behind there and hides:
He never used to want to be so far away from us that he couldn’t see us. Now, he sneaks behind the couch and hides. In fact, he did that the other day and Debi didn’t see him go behind the couch. She was running around the house calling for him and was starting to get quite frantic until he started giggling behind the couch. I wonder what happened, cognitively, for him to think that hiding behind the couch is fun. Thoughts?
One of the organizations with which I’m affiliated, Equality Florida, had an entry in the St. Petersburg Gay Pride Parade on Saturday. They were looking for volunteers to march in the parade. Since Toren had never been to a parade, I thought it might be fun to have the whole family march for equal rights. So, we marched!
Toren figuring out how to throw beads to parade visitors
he was excited to throw some beads
Toren's souped up stroller was a hit
Equality Florida's truck in front of the few protesters who showed up
you can see some of the throngs in the background of this shot
We were out in the killer Florida sun from about 9:00 until about 12:30 and all managed to avoid serious sunburns (Debi got a little burned on one arm, but otherwise was fine). We were pretty liberally coated with SPF70.
What we didn’t catch in any of our photos were the, um, more exotic floats. There was a Tampa Bay Bondage float (mostly guys dressed in strips of leather) and a number of floats with drag queens. Quite the scene!
Toren even seemed to enjoy himself, though he fell asleep in his stroller as soon as we finished the parade route.
Toren has, amazingly, accumulated so many toys (despite my best efforts) that we had to find a second toy box. We opted for this old filing box that I bought around 1998 for my files (yes, we’ve had it that long). While the box looks huge, it’s rather lightweight – the perfect size for Toren to carry.
I can imagine what he’s thinking, “I have my toys, I can go anywhere now!”
