A day just for Alex

Today (Saturday) is the day I've been dreading since Jerry left for India. I'm used to him being gone during the weekdays for work, and occasionally he has to travel to Chicago for a few days at a time, so I'm also used to having a few evenings a month without him home, too. But not the weekends. Fortunately, our Sundays are usually pretty full between church in the morning and our church group in the late afternoon so I knew I'd have that to occupy our time tomorrow, but Saturdays are wide open.  While I'm perfectly content to stay at home most of the time, I just couldn't do it today. It felt too lonely.

So I made a plan to create a day that was just about spoiling Alex. Somehow, spoiling him brought me great joy.

I got up early this morning to get myself ready before Alex woke up. After breakfast and a morning video call with daddy, Alex and I took off for Target. I had a few household things to pick up, but our main reason for going was to try to find him some Cars toys. He loves his Cars sticker books so much, I thought he might enjoy a Lightning McQueen car and Tow Mater truck. Our Target didn't have a great selection, so I told Alex we'd hit Toys R Us after our lunch at Chick-fil-A to see what we could find there.

At Chick-fil-A, he ate all of his nuggets, most of his fruit and drank all of his milk. I always smile when he eats well. Afterward we hit Toys R Us and found the Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater cars. (Oh, and did I mention that I got Alex some Reese's Pieces Easter Eggs as a snack treat, too? =) )

I also found another little goody that I thought he "needed" to have - a Thomas the Train bath toy. He loves trains, and I recently had to purge all of the bath toys that squirted water (which was mostly what he had) because of all the gunk that builds up inside that really grosses me out. So, see? He really did need it. ;-)

After Toys R Us, it was time for a nap, and then we hit the park. Alex has been dying to break in his new wagon outdoors, and since the weather was fabulous today, we took full advantage. We also saw the coal train pass by when we were at the park, and it was going slow enough that the engineer opened his window and waved at us as he passed by. Wish I had gotten a photo of that, but I wasn't that quick on the draw. Anyway, here are some pics from our park adventures.

Overall, today was much better than I thought it would be. I'm glad we kept busy and filled our day full of fun things. I feel like the toughest day is behind us, and I'm looking forward to Jerry's return home next week!