We typically have a DVD playing in Margaret's room for most of the day. When Liz makes lunch for M, she gets her all set up at the kitchen table. Liz usually finishes first, and will go bury her head in her computer at the couch, leaving M to finish on her own.

M has decided that she'd prefer to eat her lunch in front of her TV. So as soon as Liz has buried her head in her computer, she'll fly through the living room on her ninja feet, ferrying her food and beverages, sometimes requiring multiple trips, to her room. Liz knows she does this, but still rarely catches her in the act. Usually she just finds M sitting in her bed, eating her lunch, and watching TV.

I stood w/ Margaret outside the restroom area while Liz took a little break. M was still whining a bit about "green tunnel", her favorite slide, so I kept trying to build up excitement over lunch by mentioning the dinosaur sandwiches (Liz has a cookie cutter that cuts a sandwich into two brontosauruses). Still fussing, Margaret comes back w/ "Want out eat! Want white bird!" I think "White bird? What's she talking about?". She persists. "Want out eat! Want white bird!"

Knowing that M hardly ever just makes stuff up, I scan our surroundings. About 40-50' away, I see a little shack with a plastic pelican perched prominently on top. It's a snack bar. No one is standing in line or walking away w/ visible food, but somehow Margaret has seen the shack and knows that food can be purchased there. I don't know how she does it, but very little slips past her.

We did actually manage to get her out of the park without any crying, and she did eat a good amount of her lunch. After lunch we stayed until close to 5:00. She spent about 2/3 of that time at "green tunnel" in 30-45 minute stretches. One of us would go to the top of the steps to help her get into the slide, and the other would wait at the bottom to catch her when she came out, and she would just climb those steps over and over and over. It was like she did several 30-45 minute stair-stepper workouts. She almost fell asleep on the way home, which is very rare. Anyway, we all had a great time, and will likely be doing more waterparks in the future.

Liz decided to address the issue by buying Margaret her own floaty early last week. We inflated it immediately, and Margaret carried it around the house all week, calling it her "woaty".

This weekend at the pool, we came prepared w/ her woaty. Of course, she was uninterested, and it spent most of the time sitting on the sidewalk next to our stuff.

Margaret did notice two kids with lifejackets on. She pointed at them, and said "Woaty Jacket!"