On thursday October 7th I drove to daycare around 4:30 to pick up Leo. His mom had told him that I was taking him to the Excelsior Firestation open house and he was super excited. “Bye!” he yelled to his friends as soon as he saw me! He was very chatty in the car, telling me all about his day and commenting on this and that. He told me it had been a “hard day” because he had had an accident. “But my shoes stayed dry!” Well that’s a good thing Leo!
We arrived at the fire station at 5:45 pm and there were already lots of people there, and a LOT going on. We had to park several blocks away, but we walked quickly and soon we were there. The first thing we saw was a Fire hose demo. We immediately got in line for that. When it was his turn his shyness kicked in and he didn’t want to help hold the hose, but he was mesmerized as the fireman shot water at a little demo house and made the doors and windows spin. At the end he helped turn off the water and looked very pleased with himself.
Then we walked to the other end of the fire station and watched a kitchen fire demo.
THEN we got in line to ride in a fire truck. “Let’s go!” Leo said impatiently. “Well we have to wait our turn,” I replied. We passed a display of toys for a door prize drawing and I put his name in while we waited. They were using about 5 different fire trucks, and as each one pulled up he said, “oh I want to ride in that one!” When it was our turn we got right in. He wanted to sit by himself, so I belted him into one of the seats, but he didn’t want me too far away so I crouched down next to him. We drove to a nearby park, turned around in the parking lot and drove back, about 5 minutes total. They blew the horn but they didn’t set off the siren, since they can’t do that unless they are really going to a fire. Suddenly Leo turns to me with concern and asks, “where are we going?” I realize that he is worried we might actually be going to a fire and have to explain that they are just taking us for a ride.
Then we got in line for food. We had hotdogs and popcorn for dinner, and grabbed a cookie to eat on the way home. He ate it all, and so did I; we were both starving. Sparky the firedog was walking around. I asked Leo if he wanted to get his picture taken with Sparky. Nono, he shook his head no violently. But I motioned to Sparky to come over. He tried to get Leo to give him a high five or touch fingers but Leo kept shaking his head no, with a big smile on his face. Afterwards he said, “He looked at me!”
We walked into the back of the firehouse so that I could go potty and caught a glimpse of the living quarters. Then we got a helium balloon which he insisted on carrying back to the car himself.
He was totally delighted with the whole experience but when I asked him what his favorite part was he stated without hesitation, “the fire truck!”. Me too.
The following week I got a phone call. Leo was a winner in the door prize drawing! He won a giant, and I do mean giant, stuffed Olaf, the guy from Frozen. He’s huge and ridiculous and Sarah doesn’t want it anywhere near their house so its staying at meemaw and peepaw’s. We can stash it in the workout room when the kids aren’t here.
We both had a great time. Next year I’ll make Lee come with me and we can bring both Leo and Kirby!
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