Touch a Truck Highlights

Today was Buddy's first experience with "Touch a Truck" (an annual event put on by our local park district where trucks, cars, and big rigs of every kind are open for kids to climb on and honk horns and peek around in). He thought it was "Ride a Truck", though, as he sat politely in the bus waiting for it to start up and take us somewhere. We found a big Ford passenger truck and Buddy hopped into the back seat before asking me to get into the driver's seat and "Drive. Go! Go! Go!" I told him that I didn't have keys for this car and he said, "Home. Keys at home. Go home get keys?"

We toured several vehicles before he stopped waiting for rides. His personal favorites were the race car (toured that one twice), the Park District cherry picker (he honked the horn with glee), and the free ice cream cart. He was also briefly startled by a person dressed up in a turtle costume who reached out to grab his head. Buddy kept asking where the turtle was after that experience. Creepy.

Here are a few picture highlights:

Wearing a fireman's helmet in the first fire truck.

Enjoying the horn on the cherry picker.

Not really enjoying the cherry picker bucket itself.

I want a "Rear Stealth" switch like this SWAT truck.

Alice fell to pieces when she returned home from preschool and learned that she had missed Touch a Truck. It didn't even occur to me that she would have liked a choice. I simply assumed friends and a preschool field trip would trump all other experiences. And maybe it would have, but since the choice was not presented, she's convinced that the other experience would have been much more fun. I quote her, "The field trip was no fun. We just learned about trees and stuff!" Um, yeah.

We came home, ate lunch, and transplanted a heap of things into the garden. I don't like to plant in the mornings and evenings (which are the ONLY two times experts recommend transplanting) because I have traditionally used that time for other important functions (i.e. getting something cleaned in the house and decompressing at the end of the day, respectively). Mucking around outside in the morning gets the kids way too messy, WAY too early. And I have zero energy after they're in bed at night. I wasn't getting anything done until I suddenly allowed myself to transplant when I FELT like it, not when the experts said I had to do it. We used excessive amounts of water (thanks kids!) and the transplants seemed to have endured the first day well :)

We had a very short quiet time today, only 30 minutes, but that was long enough for Buddy to fall asleep sitting up again:

The whispered conversation goes like this:

Alice: Mom
Me: Yeah
Alice: Can I wake him up?
Me: That poor guy. He wants to sleep. Let's lay him down.

I turn off the camera, move the books, and lay him down. He instantly wakes up and asks to leave his room :( Oh well. He was pleasant the rest of the afternoon and only resisted bed time a little bit :)