Beautiful Day!

I'm so thankful that Thomas is transitioning to no nap now that I'm feeling better, and although today wasn't one of my stronger days, we had a full and fun day together. With the sun shining, we headed out to get a treat at Starbucks and then off to Fairhaven Park. Thomas remembers that this is the "fountain" park, and we talked about how great it will be when the weather changes to summer and the fountains come on again. It was 38 degrees as we walked to the playground. Very chilly for any extended time out, but enough to run around, do some climbing, get some swing time in and play a little Diego and baby Jaguar together. From there we dropped off paperwork at the doctor's office and headed out to find Drew a birthday present at Mt. Baker Moto Sports. It was so fun to see all their new quad bikes and Thomas enjoyed climbing up and testing them out, as I enjoyed watching him get to much out of sitting on them, turning all the switches, playing with the levers and testing me on my knowledge of engines. "This is cool," he said, bouncing on one seat and reaching for the clutch, or something that resembled one anyway. When did my baby start saying "cool"? I could only chuckle and agree with him, wishing and taking an extra glance at the smaller kid-size version on the floor of the showroom. How I'd love to get him one! It was a good thing that it didn't take me long to find the BMX shirt that I wanted to get Drew, because on the way to the clothes we spied a mini snowmobile, just waiting to be checked out. Thomas wanted nothing to do with clothes at that point. Having our fill of the snowmobile, the mini quad bikes and the big quads, we filled our hands with candy from the machine and headed out. I get such joy out of hanging out with him and I'm so proud of him at times like this. He didn't whine and fuss about leaving. He didn't throw a fit to stay longer. We simply said goodbye to the bikes and headed out. No big deal. It makes it such a treat to take him out and about. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the toddler in Walmart that we've all seen, working up a big fit in the busy aisle.

In saying that, there are times when he will press me. When I say no, he's apt to respond with, "Ah, man!" and "I can't?" in this unbelieving voice. There are also times when he'll go to the other parent, saying, "Mommy says no," with big tears filling his eyes. Or he'll say, "you want to play" or "you want to" do this or that, what ever it is he's trying to do at the time. Who can deny that? I may be in the middle of something, but when I hear the words, "Mommy, you want to play with me" followed by "come on" I'm a puddle of mush.

As we drove away I heard the call for O'Donell's from the backseat and we quickly stopped in for a fry. When we got home we made a quick lunch for the beach and headed down, delighted by the actual warmth in the sun. It was great to sit down by the beach and enjoy our time down there once again, leading me to believe it's actually not that far off until we can truly be back down on the beach spending out time outside instead of cooped up figuring out which Tractor Tom we have yet to watch today.

Jenny and the kids came down to play at the beach, but by the time they got here a freezing wind was blowing across the lake so we stayed inside as well. By 4:45 it was time to head out to soccer, although I wondered if Thomas would manage to stay awake for the short car ride. I literally had to drag him off the couch and into the car, his eyes drooping the whole way. John met us there, and although he made it for about 40 minutes, it wasn't his most attentive soccer day ever. He did a lot of running around and laying on the ball today.