Park

You are now reading the 5th of 10 blog posts from our trip.

Matt's mom, Sandy, was telling me about a friend of her's who has a son who is really into Tommy Trains. The child is approximately 3 years old. Apparently, he recently got some sort of Tommy Train set for a gift and literally threw up in excitement when he saw it. He also couldn't sleep that night for fear it wouldn't be there when he woke up.

Well, Simon doesn't know about Tommy Trains yet. But he was SO EXCITED a couple of days ago when I opened a big, multipack of toilet paper for him to put on the closet shelf. I had saved this 'chore' for him, knowing he likes to put each roll on a shelf. Also, we're trying to make 'helping' a normal part of life so that when he is old enough to really help he hopefully won't be too surprised! Well, I made a good choice, because he just shrieked with excitement, clapped his hands, and pranced around on his little feet. I hope he gets this excited about taking out the garbage when he's big enough!

We had a fire the other night--one of those duraflame logs. Very domestic, I know. Simon kept bringing Matt dead leaves from our ivy plant to add to the fire. It was funny watching both of 'my boys' just kneeling at the fire and staring. Matt kept sending Simon on errands to pick up those leaves. Then, after Simon went to bed, Matt was looking for more stuff to burn. I had a magazine out for recycling. Yep, you guessed it. Burned to a crisp. Then, our large stack of things to be shredded suddenly became fuel to heat our home. I was a little worried, because our family photo albums are kept right next to the fireplace. Luckily, Matt didn't resort to using those as fuel!