I finally decided to venture out with the boys this morning. Justin had an important presentation to make at a (virtual) meeting, the power was out and I was out of coffee — OK, mostly because I needed coffee!
Jackson was beside himself with excitement just with getting into the car. We have not driven him anywhere since early March before things first shut down.
“Look! My mirror!” he said, climbing into his car seat. “My cupholder!!!!!”
I couldn’t help but think of all the struggles we used to have getting him to sit down in his seat, and now here he was so happy to do it.
Then it must have jogged his memory again about the “old times” when we would do fun things outside the house.
“Remember we listen to music from music class? And we go to gymnastics?” he said.
Once we hit the road, we had only gone about half a block and then I heard him say:
“It’s so beautiful!”
What is??? The outside???
Followed by:
“This is so much fun, Mommy!”
Still not even a block away from home.
Followed by:
“Is this fun, Mommy?”
I’m not sure, haha.
The plan was to drive to the Metra station (after picking up coffee and munchkins!) and watch the trains go by. We never even got out of the car.
At one point a long freight train passed us, and it was carrying a bunch of huge, bright green tractors. Oh perfect! I thought. This actually is pretty cool!
I kept asking Jackson if he could see it. I couldn’t quite tell if he could from the vantage point in the back. I had asked him earlier if he wanted to sit up front with me to watch, but he said he wanted to stay in his car seat. Because car seats are so exciting now!
Finally, just as the very end of the train was passing by, Jackson tells me:
“Well, I can’t see it. But I can hear it.”
I couldn’t believe it. After all that, he didn’t even actually see anything!
And yet he still had a fabulous time. He kept talking all about his exciting trip to the train station!
