the (almost) perfect date

Noah and I had ourselves a little mommy-son date yesterday.
I feel a little silly even phrasing it like that, because really, every day is a mommy-son date for us. But yesterday was a little different.

You see, Noah does this thing every summer where he enjoys going COMPLETELY off his normal sleeping schedule. He wants to stay up and play during the day, but the sun eventually drains him to the point where he just can't last. So he passes out on the couch, on the floor, or wherever he happens to land at 5pm. Yep. Naptime at 5pm. Do you know what that means? It means that if I can't get him to wake up 30 minutes later, I'm totally screwed. We're looking at a 1am bedtime at that point. The only way to fix this is to let him sleep in reeeeally late the next morning (like 11:30 late) and keep him up until about 9:30/10pm.

SO.

Yesterday, he didn't wake up until 12pm. I figured it was safe to assume he'd last until bedtime. Since I didn't have to worry about a nap, we headed towards Birkdale for a fun little afternoon.

Backing up a bit... the other night, we all went out as a family to a favorite mall of ours. They happen to have a specialty toy shop (aka. super expensive... seriously, a play garbage truck was priced at $97). Oh my goodness gracious, I thought Noah was going to pee himself with excitement. Um... actually, he kind of did, but we're not quite ready to potty-train, so no biggie. Anyway, they had this Chuggington train table. Noah has no idea who Chuggington is, but he LOVED that table. I think we stayed in there for at least an hour.

So yesterday, we headed for the Barnes & Noble where they have a Thomas train table. Cue another diaper change.

He loved that thing.
And I'd like to pause for a second to brag on my boy. He plays so well with other kids. He doesn't have a gigantic meltdown if another kid wants to play with Thomas. Or if he has to move over to let someone else play where he is. He just keeps plucking along without a care in the world. I know it has nothing to do with me and my fantastic parenting skills (ha). It's just who he is, and you better believe I thank the Lord for that part of him every day. I mean, with everything we've had to go through with him... pre-eclampsia, dramatic entrance into the world, 24/7 colic, the helmet, autism... I feel like this is God's way of giving us a nice hug. :)

Anyway... they also have a little Lego table that he spent a good 20 minutes at, just stacking blocks. I do find it fascinating that he likes to stack them by color and shape. He's a very methodical engineer.
After he got bored with that, I took him up to the in-house Starbucks there. I try to incorporate lots of decision making opportunities for him. I'll ask if he wants to watch Curious George or Thomas for example, but usually I'm ignored. I still gave it a whirl here. I lifted him up so he could see the snacks and asked him what he wanted. He looked for a couple of minutes, then clearly pointed to the chocolate cupcake. Haha! Boy after my own heart.

So we sat, and I watched him devour his treat (mostly the frosting). At one point, he ran out of water. So I asked him to stay in his seat as I walked back to the counter (a mere 10 ft away). Did he stay? Of course not. As I stood there in line, he hopped down, fork in hand, and started wandering around the other people reading or working. I think I put him back in that chair three times before I actually got his water. He then decided it'd be a great idea, while I was in line, to start jogging a little with a fork in his hand.
Taking care of a toddler alone is exhausting. What in the world will I do when (someday), we have two??

Finally, after 1/2 his cupcake was gone, he was finished. I wrapped it up in a napkin, grabbed the books we were going to buy, threw his 45 lb self onto my hip, grabbed my bag, and prayed the drink I strategically lodged in there wouldn't spill before we got to the car.
In an effort to keep the good times rolling, I switched him into his swimsuit, in the car, before we headed on over to the fountain. And we weren't in our SUV. No, we've been having to drive Brad's little beat-up Cavalier, because it gets better gas mileage. Basically, it feels like changing clothes in a Prius. That was fun.

But honestly, I think that was the only low point of the day. Noah had a blast at the fountain, even if he didn't spend the majority of the time actually IN the water. Too many kids. I finally convinced him to get wet, but I had to get wet too. And after 5 minutes of that, he was ready to go home.

Our little date was perfect, and it continued on into the evening where we hung out on the trampoline, played in the kiddie pool, and made dinner. Oh, and he did end up holding out until 10pm last night. Nevermind that Brad said he woke up at 2am hungry and didn't go back to bed for an hour, which made him sleep in, which completely negated my efforts yesterday... it was still a perfect day. ;)