My Day Off With R (in pictures)

Today was one of my Thursdays off with R, and it was absolutely wonderful. I thought I'd document it with my mostly mediocre, sometimes out of focus pictures. :-)

I woke up around 7 or so, and the house was quiet. I took advantage of the time to myself to read my devotions and pray (at my desk).
After that, the house was still quiet, so I had time to do YOGA!!!! It's been eons since I had a chance to exercise (beyond chasing R around). I will spare you pictures of me in my yoga poses, though. ;-)

I finally woke R up at 8:30 (woohoo!). We had a mostly lazy morning that included cereal, dumping out toys all over the living room, and taking some silly pictures. Normally, I would NEVER share pictures of me pre-shower and pre-makeup, but R looks so darn cute that I had to make three exceptions.


After dropping A off at the T, R and I headed to the Children's Discovery Museum, which is about 20 minutes from where we live. We haven't been there since R was about 18 months old, so he didn't remember it at all. I was a little worried that he'd be too old for the part we were going to, but he LOVED it! It's an old Victorian house that has been converted into a multi-room, multi-floor playhouse. Each room has a different theme: trains, balls, water/bubbles, jungle, sensory, colors, a play diner (complete with booths, jukeboxes, and lots of plastic foods to play with), etc. R's favorites were the train room, ball room, and water/bubble room.

When we first arrived, though, R spotted this huge tube "instrument" set up near the parking lot.
The ball room is filled with lots of tubes and tracks for balls of different sizes. There's a little treehouse in one corner of the room where the kids can start balls on two different tracks that traverse the entire room. I was so proud of R because he was up there with a few kids and was so great about sharing balls and taking turns and saying "thank you" and "excuse me." A couple of the other moms even commented on how nice he was.
Next was the water table room. The water table is huge, and they have lots of excellent water toys. R looks sad, but he's just concentrating.
An hour after arriving, we took a break for lunch. I had packed a cooler with PB&J sandwiches, cheese sticks, grapes, and water and juice. We sat at a picnic table outside in the shade. The weather was perfect! I think R was getting tired of the picture-taking.
Near the picnic tables was a ginormous sandbox, full of great digger toys.
R latched onto one particular truck and rode it all over the sandbox and yard for a long time. He was "making a road." My job was to hold onto the rocks and sticks he picked up along the way.
After spending 3.5 hours at the museum and missing R's nap, we headed home to relax for a little while, have popsicles, and play with Play-doh before going to pick up A at the train station. I found R crashed out on the floor at one point. He was happily exhausted.
On our way to pick up some Indian food for dinner (R has been requesting chicken tikka masala for a few days), A snapped this one of R making crazy faces in the back seat.
I couldn't have asked for a better day with my boy. It's exhausting but exhilarating for me at the same time. And I didn't have to think about work at all - yay! I'm so thankful for this day and for the time I was able to spend with R (even at bedtime when he finally had his meltdown due to being completely wiped out).