Fairy Doors

Today we woke to a gorgeously sunny morning, something we haven’t seen in awhile.  It’s still a cool Spring, but the sunshine makes all the difference.  We also had a play date set up with one of Little Man’s friends (and mine too) to visit Neck Point.  No errands today, just fun.

Our main goal for today was for Little Man and his friend to visit the Fairy Doors.  The last time I wrote about Neck Point was for the first time we visited the park with Dave for a Surprise Day.  We’ve been back many times, often with friends for sunny day play dates and a few times with family as well.  It’s one of our favorite places to visit, and each time we are there we explore new paths and find new treasures.

Little Man’s favorite thing to do (other than throwing pebbles into the ocean) is to visit the Fairy Doors.  Up until this point we’d only ever visited the main door where treasures can be found.  I’m still learning the story of who made these doors, but from the parking lot if you take the path behind the washroom and head up and to the right you will find the first Fairy Door.

A small sign above the door states “Give a Little, Take a Little.”  I’d been told about this door in advance, so I knew to bring a little treasure to leave behind and that Little Man could then choose a little treasure of his own from the fairy stash.  Today I also brought a little extra treasure along for Little Man’s friend since this was their first visit to the doors.  We generally pass on the dodgy candy, but each visit has a new selection of treasures to choose from.  Little Man’s favorite so far is the penny, which is my personal favorite too since they aren’t even printed anymore.  A real treasure if I’ve ever seen one.

If you continue straight on this path (no veering to right or left, no matter how tempting those paths are, at least for us today) you will come across a small grove of other fairy doors.  I think we’ve counted nine in total, and there very well could be more scattered across other paths.  We’re going to have to keep exploring to see if there are others.  My friend said that she’d seen a picture of another, more ornate door…  That should keep us searching up and down the paths for awhile.

For today Little Man and his friend had a blast going up to every door they could find and knocking to see if any fairy were home.  The only door that actually opens is on the treasure house door, so we explained that the other fairies must be out and about (or ooot and abooot).  The kiddos sighed, and then rushed off to the next door they found.

Lastly we came to another one of the pebble beaches and climbed around on the logs a bit.  This beach, however, got a full blast of the cold ocean wind, so pretty quickly we went back to the paths and back tracked to our favorite pebble-throwing-in-the-ocean beach that is around the bend and protected from the wind.  By this time the little legs were exhausted and it was getting close to lunch time.  That means that the whining level went up considerably, and the tired toddlers were herded back to the cars and their respective homes for lunches and nap times.  More exploring would have to wait for another day.

Day 2 of Operation Daddy Sign

Even better than paint splatting, Little Man LOVES stickers.  Now, the problem can be that he wants the stickers to be toys rather than letting them stay on the paper.  For Operation Daddy Sign, Little Man chose some sparkly start stickers and special gem stickers, both of which were left over from supplies for birthday crowns that we never got around to making.

Little Man got to put the stars and 4 gems on one by one, choosing the spots himself.  He likes to group and line things up, so he made some nice constellations in a couple of spots.

His favorite part of this was that at the end of putting on all the stickers, he got to choose one gem for his own to play with.  He chose a “little, little, little” purple one, and has been playing with it ever since.  He puts it on his golden plastic pirate coins, puts it on his real coins, carries it around to the dinner table and to brush his teeth before bed.  He even “put it to sleep” on his changing table before story time.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the jewel to become lost in or under the couch.  Any over/unders?  Day 2 accomplished…