me
We started out our day by visiting the Twin Cities Model Train museum. It was really cool, for both of us. They have miles of tiny tracks and they run multiple trains at a time (the most we saw was five, but they have dozens of trains.). Clay thought it was fun to chase a train around the entire track and watch its route; which, when you're 5 is probably a whole lot of fun.
Of course, being Clay, he had about a billion and one questions, most of which I couldn't answer. I did my best and read the signs posted around the room (as to how fast they go....there was a sign to figure it out, but that wasn't math I could do in my head....) but model trains are really not my forte. So we found the guy who runs the model trains and I let Clay at him.
Here Clay is by the switchboard peppering the guy (you can see his arm/sleeve on the edge of the picture) with questions. After about 6 or 7 minutes of solid questions, the guy finally ran out of answers for curious Clay and eventually shot me a "help me!" look, so I convinced Clay that it was time to go. I thought it was funny that he can even exhaust the experts with his curiosity--his poor parents!
After that, we headed off to lunch at Wendy's--Clay's choice. He got a happy meal with a kids deck of cards for playing Crazy 8's. Which was then the focus of our conversation from there to our next stop. "Why is it called Crazy 8s?" "How come the 8s are crazy?" "Is there a game for crazy 1s?" (and 2s and 3s and 4s, etc.) "How do you play?" "Is it fun?" "Why is it fun?" "Do you like it?" "Why do you like it?" "How do you know how to play?" "Who taught you?" "Who do you play with?" "Does your sister know how to play?" and on and on and on....that is really only a fraction of the conversation that we had about Crazy 8s. He is truly the most inquisitive child, he literally cannot stop until he feels he has learned every aspect of the thing he is focused on.
Then we got to the movie. Monsters vs. Aliens. Which I decided that we'd go see in 3D because we could and I haven't seen a 3D movie in forever. Actually, the last time I saw one they still had cardboard glasses with one blue lens and one red lens (remember those?). They're way more updated now. Of course, in telling Clay that we were going to see a movie in 3D, I then had to try to explain the concept of 3D to him-which I did, though rather poorly. But he figured it out when the movie started. He was full of questions once it began, but fortunately, the Saturday matinee is filled with dads and kids (I am guessing weekend dads who don't know what else to do with the kids all day) so it wasn't a big deal if we talked about it during the movie. Plenty of kids in there talking....plenty.
Next we stopped at my house to let my dog out and for Clay to change his clothes (he was covered with bright, orange powdered cheese from the cheese popcorn I bought him). Then, as we were driving to the next destination, Clay was pretty quiet in the back seat. He hadn't napped all day, so I was content to let him rest and process, but I still wanted to check on him, so I made a quick peek at him.
And that's what I saw. He was riding in the car, wearing his 3D glasses. I was able to snap a picture over my shoulder while driving. How freaking cute is that?
Then, because he saw me take the picture, he wanted to take one of me, soafter we got to Maplewood Mall and parked, we did this:
Is that cute or what?
Then we were off to the arcade. This was the part of the day that Clayton was most looking forward to. He loves video games but has never been to an arcade before. We played pretty much every game in there and many of them more than once. Clay really liked the violent games, shooting games and the game where you pressed a button and punched the ducks and the one where to take a mallet and hit the creatures (sharks) as they pop up out of their holes. Boys sure are different. Me, I just wanted to play Skee Ball.
Then we did a motorcycle racing game together where he beat me soundly. For real....I don't let him win, he just was better at it than me. He has awesome hand-eye coordination, which I really don't.
Then he did a snowmobile racing game:
And I just love the look of intense concentration on his face right there. He won that game, too. Came in first place. It amazes me that he's actually that good at them, it isn't like he's played them all before or anything.
After winning our 375 tickets (plus the 40 that some guy gave us just to be nice) we headed off to buy our "prizes". I let Clay pick out whatever he wanted and I think even he thought they were lame because he had trouble spending them all. But we did and then we were done at the arcade.
We made a quick pit stop at the carousel where one of us got to ride for free. I am not sure who, but the guy only charged us for one ticket but still let us both in.
Fortunately, I was smart enough to get a picture before the ride started, because once it's going, it is pretty tough to do:
See? I guess movement doesn't agree with my cameraphone. Ah well, this is still cute, even though it's blurry.
After leaving the mall, we headed across the street to Toys-R-Us, which was a special request that Clay made. He had gotten $25 for his birthday and in an effort to teach him about money his parents told him he could spend it on anything he wanted. Well, we went to the store to spend his dough. We were in there for a LOOOOONG time, as we had to go up and down every single aisle, with Clay pointing at things that struck his fancy and going, "can I afford that?" Yikes! He had originally said that he wanted someting from Planet Hero, so that's what we were looking for. Clay finally had to ask someone because we couldn't find them, and that's where he found his dream toy. It's some sort of space station for his action figures to play on. It cost $24.98 and when I told him he could afford it his whole face lit up and he tried to grab this giant box off the shelf. I helped him and we headed up to pay.
By the way, while wandering through all these aisles, I managed to find a toy that I just couldn't live without. A Tom Brady action figure! No kidding! It's awesome. Clay thought it was hilarious that I was buying myself a toy. He kept saying, "but you're an adult!"
So, as we're waiting in line to pay, the lady in front of us is standing there with her (roughly) 3-year-old. Clay is hammering me with questions about my toy. "Why are you buying it?" "What are you going to do with it?" That kind of thing. I told him that Tom Brady is my favorite football player and that's why I was buying it. He wanted to know why he's my favorite, so I said, "because he's really cute and I love him."
There was a moment's pause and then Clay looked at me and said, "you can't love him, you don't even know him." The lady in front of us burst out laughing (clearly she had been listening in) and looked back at Clay, kind of measuring him up. I think she was dreading the years to come....when they start to get smarter than you. As for me, I just sort of stood there, put in my place by a 5-year-old. After a moment I eventually told Clay that he was right, I don't really love him, but I sure do like him alot. And that seemed good enough.
We left the toy store with about a 15 minutes left to get home, which was perfect. So perfect, in fact, that as we passed a Dairy Queen, we had just enough time to get us each a Dilly Bar (Mine, chocolate-his, cherry) to cap off our perfect day.
As we were driving home I asked Clay what his favorite part of the day was and he said, "beating you at those video games" without missing a beat. He really does crack me up. Then he asked me what my favorite part was and I said, "spending time with you."
And that's true. I can't wait for our next special day.
36 days.
