Today was a good day. Although we invited several of our friends to join us in driving to Temple, no one was available. That's alright, we went anyway!
Before embarking on our trip to Whistle Stop Park, we noticed a garage sale down the street. I helped Caleb take $1.50 in quarters from his piggy bank in case he saw anything he couldn't live without. As you'll understand soon, his definition of "can't live without" is pretty lax. I loaded Sarah in the stroller and Caleb and I walked on over.
He immediately picked out a toy for Sarah, a turtle pull toy circa 1987. I pulled this image from the internet; ours does not have the original string. Instead it has a cotton string that was attached by the previous owners. Cute toy and a good buy at $0.25.
Next, he spotted a bundle of ice cube trays (may 8 of them) tied together with yarn. He picked them up and gave me a look that said, "Please?" I told him that we had several ice cube trays in the cabinet and we didn't need anymore. He insisted that he wanted to buy them to play with...in his sandbox. Sure, why not? He spent $0.50 on those ice cube trays and they went into the sandbox as soon as we got home.
He continued to wander around the garage sale, trying to find something else he had to have. It seemed as though he just wanted to spend his money, so I encouraged him to save it until another time. He put his last 3 quarters in his pocket and told the ladies thank you for his purchases.
Around 9:30 am, we started for Temple. I was dragging because I hadn't had my coffee so I pulled into Starbucks, but quickly decided to tough it out because the drive thru had about 10 cars in the line. I stopped at Shipley's for some water, donut holes, and a sausage kolache. We finally arrived at Whistle Stop around 10:10 am.
Caleb quickly found a group of about 4 boys to play with. They were climbing up the outside of the twisty slide. Thankfully, Caleb knew better than to try that one! He started a short-lived game of tag and then tried to get me involved in following him through the maze of woodwork. I had a good time, but it was tough to climb the rope net while holding Sarah.
I finally settled Sarah into a baby swing while Caleb elicited help from a grandmother to push him on the tire swing. A few minutes later, Caleb was begging to be stopped because he was getting dizzy. The grandmother and I had a good laugh as we watched Caleb struggling to regain his bearings. When he was finally able to walk in a straight line, he joined me in the swing next to Sarah. It was a special swing with a back, made for disabled children. It makes for fun to adults too! I really enjoyed swinging with Caleb. It was a sweet, quiet moment. Those are few and far between.
The swing was something similar to this:
After the park, we joined Jadie for lunch at Chick-fil-A before driving back home for nap time. What a wonderful day!
