This edition of the Adventures With Twins will involve only one... Easton. I may throw in a comment or two about Layla, but the real highlight of the past two days was "guy's time" for Easton and me. My plan for our mini-adventure revolved around the Hall of Flame Fire Museum and the National Firefighting Hall of Heroes. It's the largest firefighting museum in the country and exists only 15 minutes from our house.
The huge warehouse was filled with dozens of fire trucks from every era. Easton was not very impressed with the hand-pulled and horse drawn carriages.
but then we walked into a room with rows of huge modern fire trucks.
His eyes lit up and he said, "Oh my goodness!" over and over again. One of the trucks was available to climb on so Easton took full advantage of every seat on the truck.
He wasn't interested in wearing the adult-sized fireman gear or helmet, but I didn't let that stop me from jumping into character. He said, "This is a big dinosaur steering wheel". At this point in his vocabulary anything too big for description automatically defaults to the dinosaur size. I think he has little, big, and dinosaur as his three main categories for size description.
There was a 9/11 memorial section of the warehouse and I struggled with how much to explain to him about the magnitude of what happened that day. As he matures I will make it a top priority to make sure he knows what happened, who did it, and why. I will never forget and it is my goal to make sure he never forgets. At this point in his life the innocent smile is proof he has no idea what the sign next to him stands for... and I'm ok with that for now.
One thing in the museum DID creep him out without any commentary from me... Smokey the Bear.
He was really apprehensive and wouldn't stand any closer than he is in the picture. I tried to tell him Smokey is cool and a happy bear, but my approval didn't change his mind. Before we left I said, "Only YOU can prevent forest fires." and he just stared at me with a blank face.
Easton jumped into character once the size of the fire truck matched his presence. He put out several fire with the appropriate water spraying noises.
We walked out of the museum and I noticed two things: We had more time to hang out and the light rail station was a stones throw away. Being the adventurous father I decided to turn this into his first light rail ride as well. We walked down to the station and a light rail came whizzing by. Easton's eyes bugged out and again he spouted off his 2-minute-long broken record expression, "Oh my goodness, oh my GOODNESS!"
I asked if he wanted to ride the light rail and he immediately responded with a whispered, "yeahhhhhhh, that would be cool." He was right. It was very cool.
We rode it three stops into downtown Tempe where we disembarked, walked to the other side of the tracks and waited for the light rail going the other direction. We jumped on that one and arrived safely back at our car without incident. Here's a short video clip of the ride as we crossed the bridge. The pause in the middle of his comment to Momma shows how overwhelmed he was by the experience.
The location of the museum and light rail station is right next to the airport and directly in the flight path. When the huge jumbo jets started flying overhead I heard a whole ‘nother round of , “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!”
Even the simplest concept of the waterfall and artistic bowl of water is intriguing to him. It took all his willpower not to stick his hand in the water, but he restrained himself well.
He was absolutely overloaded by the fire trucks, trains, and airplanes. He didn’t last 10 minutes in the car ride on the way home before dozing off to sleep. The trip was easily the most exciting “guy’s time” we’ve experienced to date.
I'll finish the post with a current picture of our front room. We bought a whole bedroom suite of furniture for Easton through Craigslist. Good, quality wood and furniture, but will need some TLC from Kendra in the form of sanding and repainting the entire set black. She'll save that monumental effort for when we return from the holiday visit in Sacramento.
The front room is intended to be a formal dining room, but we turned it into a pool table room, then it became a play room, now it is a pre-staging storage room for furniture.
Our house is getting smaller every day. :)
See you soon!
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