Robinson Carusoe day

Ok not nearly as retro as that movie. But we did go up in a faux tree-house, so it's still just as cool.

Caden's Early Intervention preschool group had a field trip today to the Ogden's Treehouse Museum. I'd not taken him there yet so this was his first time. Oh .. my .. goodness. Once he got over the obligatory 'I have to be shy because this is new to me' thing, I could not keep up with him. Hence why a good chunk of the pictures are of his back or taken from the side in a 'hope my fingers are quick enough' snapshot.

The day was so incredibly awesome for him. At the beginning, staffers took the group into the little stage area and sang some songs and had some stories. Caden got all excited when it was time to sing Old McDonald and the guy drug out a bunch of animal puppets. He apparently got the most excited over the donkey because the staffer told him "You got most excited about the donkey, you wanna come hold our donkey for us for the song?" So Caden (mommy in tow of course) got to go sit on the stage and hold a huge donkey puppet through the song. He LOVED IT. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of this as he was sitting on my lap on the stage (and I didn't think in time to have my cousin, who was there with her little boy too, take one for me, d'oh!). After that it was free time, and oh my gosh did Caden take advantage. I'm surprised he didn't sleep like a dead thing during naptime after everything he explored.

First stop. The dinosaur table. How convenient that it was just his height!


Caden's Early Intervention 'girlfriend' Ella. They play so cute together during classes on Tuesdays, why would I expect anything different at a kid's museum?


Up in the big tree-house (spiral staircase) in the center. He loved walking back and forth across this bridge.


Right outside the castle area. My buff little prince Aurthur. Check out those biceps rippling!


Into the chess room. I tried to get him on the throne in the background there, but he would have none of it after he saw what was inside this room.


Some of the chess pieces - the king, queen, and bishops - were as tall as he was. He moved a bunch around for about 10 minutes. He'll be the next Bobbie Fischer, just you wait.


Up to the music room next. He could have stayed in here all day long if I'd let him.



Cabana baby!



But alas, music must take the back seat when you have a country to run. You'll have to excuse him a moment while he takes that call, that's the Secretary of Defense on the phone there..


Can't you see it 30 years from now? He's got his foot in the door, baby.


And of course when you're 2, national security gets shoved to the back burner when you see what's downstairs, so off he goes.


Behold, the fire truck. He stayed longest here, and who can blame him?



Of course just driving isn't enough, we needed the hat.




And then out came the fireman jacket as he ever-so-gentlemanly like slid over to let the lady take the wheel.


But who has time to save the day all day when there are train sets to be played with?


Okay, just one last loop through my district, then I'm done, I'm serious..


We had to stop at the fire truck for a final work-over before going back into the auditorium for a good-bye song and story. All in all we were there for about 2 hours, and they were the funnest 2 hours I've spent in a LONG time. We will definitely be going back.

Unintentional movie night

Caden's love of trains has taken the back burner while he nurses a newfound obsession with cars. Anything cars. Not just what we think of as a 'car', we're talking anything with wheels and a fender or is otherwise generally cozily snuggled under the "vehicle" umbrella. Knowing this, Branden and I decided to see if we could feed this passion and tonight, after he woke up from his nap, we went to Best Buy and picked up this movie:


Disney Pixar's "Cars". We picked up some take-out and got home about 6:45. We figured we'd pop in the movie, see if he liked it. Yeah. 'Like' is a bit of a colossal understatement. We ended up eating dinner on the floor (because we unwisely popped in the movie before we had the take-out set out and ready to go) because he could not take his eyes off the screen. I wound up feeding him half of his own dinner (finger food fare, just so you know) because he was so entranced. All through the movie it was "Is a cah? Is a cah. Cah!" 'Cah' is how he says car because he doesn't put the 'r' on the end. He sat stone still through the whole thing, back against the edge of the futon, head on the cushion. Every now and again he'd say "Done" and stand up like he was ready to go for his bath finally, but then sit back down and push my hand away. Eating and drinking, Mom? Piffle, more Cars please!

All 3 of us wound up sitting on the floor snarfin down a slaved over take-out meal and watching Cars. It didn't finish until 8:45. Nugget was so tired by bath that his eyes were red and he about fell asleep in my arms during sippy of warm milk and bedtime story; didn't wind up getting into bed until about 9:30. I had some things I'd wanted to get done after he went to bed at his normal time. But screw it all :) I wouldn't change a bit of tonight for anything in the world.

Harry Potter wannabe

Ok, he's never actually even seen a Harry Potter movie yet (not for several years yet!). Today we went to his little pre-preschool class that Early Intervention offers every Tuesday, and he found this little Fisher Price doctor kit during free play time. And he found these glasses:

He *loves* glasses. He calls them 'eyes'. In fact when I got out of the shower this morning before we left, he goes "Eyes?" and hands me my glasses from off the bathroom counter. Thank you, Love Bug, for reminding mommy that she needs her 'eyes' before she can leave the house. It is physically impossible to love this little dude any more. But I'll manage.