Sunday was a beautiful day here in the south. We decided to take a trip to the closest "big" city. H probably would have preferred to stay home and swing all day but, alas, the parents had cabin fever and decided to get out of dodge. I read a post today about one mom discussing how a quick trip to the store wasn't so quick any more and had to laugh. Before leaving out the door we make sure we have wipes, pull-ups, snacks (for everyone), clothes for various types of weather, multiple phones, sunglasses (including purple plastic ones), kleenex, camera, and anything that H currently has as an obsession (stickers, blanket, pillow, cars, shoes, etc.)
We loaded up and headed out in good time for a 1 1/2 drive. Since it was prelunch,we were hoping H would take a nap most of the way. We travelled about 45 mintues and it suddenly dawned on me....no stroller. How can the parents of a 2GO3 NOT REMEMBER A STROLLER when their goal is to go walk around the city??? I guess we were so excited not to get drawn into a fight to leave the swing we completely lost our minds.
On the plus side, H did fall asleep for about the last 35 mintues of the trip. We arrived to a blue sky day, warm enough to walk around without jackets. As we reached the city, H exclaimed "I like these!" "H, you like the big buildings?" "Yeth!" "I like garages, tooooo!" Why he felt compelled to comment on these two items I don't know. We lived in a city with tall buildings and parking garages but I don't supposed he could really verbalize about them back then. Now, we live in city where the tallest building ties with a health complex and a hotel. H knows a hotel when he sees one though...something he picked up on when we came to house hunt and during the move. Anyway, he was adamant that Lightning McQueen would sleep in the parking garages. Did I mention I have personally seen Cars more than a dozen times now? You can catch a lot more if you turn on the subtitles....
Once we figured out how to actually get to our destination, our first stop was Bass Pro. Why? Because they had shopping carts! What better way to keep a toddler busy than looking in a huge store with lots of interesting things hanging everywhere. I was a little disappointed at the size of this store's fish tank but we watched it from above anyway. H kept "catching" fish and throwing them back - kudos to Papaw for that memory. After doing Bass Pro, we decided to live dangerously and head outside to walk along the river. We both seriously considered taking the shopping cart with us since we were sans stroller but decided the store wouldn't be too happy about it. H did have fun running around outside. It wasn't very crowded and along the river there wasn't anywhere he could run off to so it ended up being ok. I can't tell you the kind of looks we get though when H runs ahead of us! They range from "where did you come from" to "oh, you have one of those kids" to "awww he's so cute!" Generally, we just hang back enough to keep an eye on him and close enough to reach him quickly if he really sprints. I must admit, he's getting faster as he gets older and somehow that doesn't equate to he same process for parents. While I didn't do any shopping we did enjoy the nice day. There was a kiosk outside that had a bubble machine on it. H and another little girl about his age were madly chasing the bubbles for a good 15 minutes. The father of the girl wondered how much it cost....it was a great toddler occupier!
We did have a bit of a fight leaving the bubbles and he was a little cranky going back to the car. However, on the way home, we stopped at the model RC plane field. There were a half dozen or so planes there. I opted to sit in the car while H and Daddy walked around outside and oggled. I think they both really enjoyed the planes. Yesterday he kept talking about the "little" planes. "I like little planes, tooooo." We will definitely have to go back there.
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