LaDonna and I are out on our 2nd road trip of 2009. The first one was to visit my godson, Savion, and his mother (one of my best friends), Sierra in Miami, and my little Spelman sister, Erin, and her daughter, Brianna.
This trip LaDonna had to display a medial research poster at a Pediatriacs Conference in Baltimore, MD, so we decided to leave the conference early and go to visit her goddaughter, Mikayla, and her mother (LaDonna's bestfriend), Nadine in Portsmouth, VA. We all left from there yesterday and are now in Jacksonville, NC near the naval base where Nadine works.
I've totally fallen in love with Mikayla - she's such a bright, shining star! And ... I just genuinely love children.
Anyways, this morning, Nadine went to work and Mikayla spent the day with us. I took her bike riding in the parking lot of their condo first, and then we went on a quick roadtrip. We were looking for a park, but found a really nice and quaint, zoo - Lynnwood Park Zoo. When we got there, it didn't look like much, but when the guy at the ticket booth started to explain everything that was in the park, he had such a passion that he excited our curiousity.
The rest of trip around the park was interesting and fun. Mikayla is 3 years old and she'll be 4 at the end of July. She really enjoyed all of the animals and was so engaged in the entire experience.
We got half way around the park and met the zookeeper and he brought out some animals for her to hold, touch, pet and feed. It was a great learning experience for her and opportunity for us to teach her.
We went around feeding animals and talking about them. Mikayla left the zoo more comfortable and familiar with the animals which was exciting for us and her.
On our way back home, we saw a sign that said, "Southern Strawberries". We decided to just turn around and go and check out the strawberry farm. So, we did. We made a U-turn and headed down the street where it said to go.
We got to the farm which wasn't very obviously labeled. Inside, we could see the strawberry fields and we could also see that they raised bees and made honey. So, we took Mikayla in fields and taught her how to pick strawberries. We picked a whole basket full and then went back to the main tent and purchased them.
I gave Mikayla $2.00 to pay the farmer and he gave me the change. While paying for the strawberries, I saw a signed photo of Dakota Fanning sitting on the counter with a few news article clippings that had Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning and others in them.
Apparently, Queen Latifah and the rest of the crew came to this strawberry field to train on how to raise bees and make honey for the movie: Secret Lives of Bees. Can you believe that?!
It's just these little moments like this in a child's life when you decide to expose them to new things that make all of the difference.
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