Alone Time

Caroline and I enjoyed a fun Friday together this past week. It isn't often that she and I get to spend quality alone time together. We always have fun and I just love having all of these "grown -up" conversations with her. She asks and says the most grown-up things sometimes. It's kind of scary.

The first thing on our agenda was attending a tour of a local fire station with our Mops group. This was a great opportunity for the children to learn about fire safety and to see all of the fire equipment up close, including the fire engine. They had a fireman dressed in his complete uniform. Some of the children were a little scared, but most went right up to talk to him. I thought this was a wonderful teaching tool for the children. They learned not to be afraid if a fireman comes into their home during a fire and that if they saw a man dressed like this, it was okay and safe to go with them. They showed them a lot of the tools they use during a fire and let all of the children walk through a real fire engine. They loved this!!! We were able to see where the firemen eat and sleep and the children were amazed that their beds were tucked away in the wall. The fireman asked what the kids thought of that, and one replied "It's green". (the comforter was green) Funny, they could care less that it was tucked away in the wall or maybe they just thought this was normal. Caroline had a great time with her best buddy Emma. These two are inseparable whereever we go. They were holding hands during the tour, running and laughing.

After our tour, we did a lot of errands together. She loves to know where we are going and what we will be doing there. She loves to pick out the cart and sit up front near me and help me put our items in the basket. After our errands, we headed to a friends house so I could get my hair colored and trimmed. While we were there, she drew her very first family portrait of us. I was stunned. I had never seen her draw a stick person before. Her artistic ability usually only consists of smiley faces and sunshines. I have saved this and put the date on it and plan to put it in her scrapbook. It's adorable. I love that she knew to make the mommy and daddy bigger than the kids and to make herself bigger than her little sister. How smart, especially at three years old.

Our last stop of the day was Dr. Larson's office. Caroline has been complaining of knee pain for quite some time and I have just put it off. But lately, she has been complaining on a daily basis. So I decided it was time and took her in. She was very good and let the doctor poke and push her knee around. The diagnois was that her right knee cap is a little lose. Weird, I know. I guess this isn't uncommon especially for toddlers, and seeing that they are born without knee caps anyway. So, I was happy with the outcome but the doctor decided he would like to get an x-ray just to make sure there wasn't anything going on underneath her knee cap. We headed to the x-ray office and Caroline was such a big girl. She laid still and listened to the x-ray technician and was curious about all of the big equipment. She wasn't scared at all. The x-ray outcome was normal and I just have to watch her knee cap and make sure it stays in place. No problem!!

We had a wonderful day together as did, Roy and Makenzie. Caroline is asking when we can do it all again. Very soon my sweet girl.