As publisher of a newsletter and website for children's events, I am usually on top of all the fun events happening for kids all around town. This morning I decided to put all the research that I do to good use and actually attend one of those events. :-)
It sounded like THE PERFECT thing for Lane. It was Touch-a-Truck at Westside Park and it was FREE.
So I planned our morning which included a haircut for the soon-to-be big brother and then Touch-a-Truck. My child, absolutely LOVES playing in cars. In fact, several times a day we "pay car" (translate: play in the car). Every time we pull into the garage, Lane asks "pay car momma?" In most cases, I let him, but sometimes we have other things on the agenda. When we go to play outside, he would rather play in the car. It's quite funny and I'm sure my neighbors think we are crazy because he always turns on the flashers and I usually sit in the passenger seat or on a lawn chair in the garage. It's a sight, I tell ya! He knows which key belongs in my ignition and which key belongs in Matt's and can put it in correctly and turn it.
Not only does he love to "pay car," he also loves trucks, tractors, anything construction looking or garbage truck looking, he adores. Touch-a-Truck includes all of this. I was so excited to take him.
We pulled into the park and all of the trucks were set-up...tractors, diggers, dump trucks, garbage trucks, excavators, back how loaders...they had it all. As we walked up, we noticed lots of horn blowing. Didn't think too much of it. Lane was in all of his glory as we approached. He quickly got in a CAT something or other. Not really sure what it was, but he loved it.
Then he started noticing the LOUD horns of all the trucks and walked around like this:
As we got deeper into it and closer to all the LOUD horns, he started getting scared.
We tried to distract him by putting him in different trucks, but he really wasn't having it.
In his defense, it was LOUD. And pretty soon he was in full-on hysterics, clenching onto Matt so tight and crying, we had to get out of there. I felt horrible.
As much as he wanted to enjoy it, he just couldn't get past all of the loud horns.
So we headed for the car and tried to calm him with a popsicle. He was too distraught to even bite. He calmed down once we got further from the noise and started saying "too youd" "big horns too youd, momma." He was happy to be in the car. I was feeling guilty for planning a, what I thought, super-fun morning gone wrong. I needed to redeem myself so we drove to a park and let him run wild. He kept telling us he had fun, but "too youd."
There's the smile that I was hoping to see!
We redeemed ourselves!
There's another Touch-a-Truck event, next weekend. That one is $5 admission. I'm glad we got our free test run this weekend. Not sure Lane would get his $5 worth with all the "yowd" horn blowing.
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