Dummies for the kittens...

Traditions are good to keep going. The other weekend we made our first trip of the year to Skansen. There were two reasons, (1) to give Alice's old dummies to the new baby animals and (2) to see the new baby bears.

Limbering up

One of the rituals about visiting Skansen is that Alice enjoys warming up on the climbing frame. This is about 14ft/4.5m tall and she gets up to the top without any trouble.

That's progress. It was only just over 1 year ago that she climbed this and got stuck near the top. Well it was down to me to go up and fetch her - a bit tricky higher up as it's only designed for children.

Emily is following in Alice's footsteps so I'm just wondering how long before I need to fetch her.

Dummies

There's a small children's zoo in Skansen - this has kittens, rabbits, chicken, kid goats and guinea pigs. Some can be petted. Well, there's a tradition of handing over dummies to the newborn animals.

It's partly a transition for kids - they've done with their dummies and now they're handing them over to the animals that might need them. 

Quite a good idea and a talking point for children to discuss when they want to stop using them.

Alice made a present, tied up with a ribbon, for the kittens. 

The package was placed in the wishing well - with the hundreds of other dummies.

Alice hasn't used a dummy in a long time, but then we haven't been to Skansen in a long time either.

Animals

It was a glorious day. The seals were a favorite, the new born brown bears (out of hibernation in the last month) looked very cuddly, the moose looked lethargic and  the bison huge and hairy. All very photogenic.

However, the animal that got the most interaction from Alice was a squirrel. 

Image via Wikipedia

Near the bear enclosure a semi-tame red squirrel came by to look at the people. Alice offered her hand and it came up to her for a sniff, retreating when there was no food on show. 

This was interpretted as a game of tag. The transition from semi-tame, semi-calm to semi-scared-witless squirrel was very quick. 

It was a close thing but it did manage to get away in the end!