Eagle Eye on the Prairie

If I've learned anything with the birth of a child, it's that parenting is all about compromise....between the parents. In our particular household, compromise manifests itself in a number of ways; Mama accepts my obsessive cleaning/preaning of the child, and I turn a blind eye to that extra half hour of Dinosaur Train in the morning. Recently, our weekends together have been a study in compromise, paired with a series of trips down memory lane, with Mama leading the charge and Lili and I (begrudgingly) tagging along (I mean...how much history should a Mommy and a babe really be expected to absorb? Really.) Weekend #1, a long, winding, and directionally misguided road trip to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, MN, harkened back to Mama's Renaissance days and status as "adolescent-falconer-in-training". Weekend #2 consisted of horse-drawn carriages, maple syrup tapping, and an 1800s schoolhouse at The Landing (Laura Ingalls Wilder bonnets and strapping young farm men included). For Lili, the takeaway message from our weekend adventures was two-fold; "Harriet pooped" (in reference to one of the eagles residents of the NEC) and "Push!" (a command yelled more than once at our equine Landing tour guides).

 Mama in her natural habitat.

Stars, stripes, and some fairly tremendous eagle poop.

Learning to color eagles. Eagles that look suspiciously like squiggly lines. 

Landing at The Landing.

Our carriage maestro, who played a charming fiddle while we traveled "downtown". Very 19th-century chic. 

Before/After

Push, pushers!