Shoes=Outside

When Nick comes inside from anywhere, he takes off his socks and shoes. He just likes to be barefoot inside. He also doesn't like shoes on the couch or beds, so when Ivy's inside, most of the time, her shoes and socks come off too. Naturally, this necessitates putting shoes on when we've been home and then decide to go somewhere. Ivy seems to understand this.

She LOVES to be outside. She's tall enough to reach the door knob, so it's locked all the time now. She'll go up to the door, try to turn the handle and say "side" when she wants to go outside (which is all the time). When she sees one of us putting our shoes on, she naturally goes to the door and says "side".

Yesterday, Nick took Ivy out to the pool for a while before I got home from work. They put their feet in the pool and splashed a bit, but no real swimming (water is still cold). When I got home, they were back inside, shoes off.

Ivy wasn't quite done being outside for the day. She kept going to the door and saying "side". She'd bring us her shoes and try to open the door, but we just said no, and continued doing whatever we were doing. After a while, Ivy changed her strategy. She started up the stairs. We noticed this and decided to wait and see what she was up to. After a while, we heard a thud...then another...then "side". Immediately, we knew what she was doing.

She has several favorite toys. When she's downstairs, she likes to have them with her, but she can't carry them down the steps by herself. They usually get thrown down, one set of steps at a time. But it wasn't toys she was throwing--it was daddy's shoes. This was her not so subtle way of saying she fully expected to go outside if shoes could be put on. After getting them down the stairs by herself, we figured she deserved to go out again.