After getting through quite a bit of work this morning, I thought it would be cool to give Cherise a break and take Jacob for the afternoon for some daddy/Jacob time.

The plan was simple: After his nap, I’d give him a snack and we’d be out the door by 3:15 or 3:30 at the latest. He slept until 3:15, so that went out the window. We left the house at 4:15 and went to the mall.

Once there, we walked over to the giant carousel that he loves so much. Every time he sees it, his face lights up, and I know I’m going to end up spending at least the $3 for one ride (it’s usually two rides, so I buy two tokens right away for $5 – gives me an extra dollar for the french fries, but more on that later…)

Anyway, we got on the carousel and he chose the tiger to ride on. He loved it, as usual, and when it was over he started chanting “Again! Again!” (which sounds more like “Gehn! Gehn!”)

Thankfully, I was prepared and happy to go again – this was our afternoon, after all! So, again we went!

Of course, as the second turn on the ride came to it’s end, he was once more chanting “Gehn! Gehn!” But this time, I let him know that we were going for french fries! He was alright with that.

(The love of french fries goes very far back in my family on my mom’s side – she loves french fries and her mother – my grandmother – LOVED french fries too. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how far back this little “tradition” goes, but I digress…)

Back to our day. We went to this Belgian French Fry stand right across from the carousel – talk about a great location for a business. As we ordered, a woman came up with her 3.5 year old son, and she was holding five or six balloons.

Jacob instantly started saying “boom, boom!” (which is his word for balloon) and I started to let him know that those weren’t his balloons. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t letting up. I was bracing for what might come next when the woman looked at Jacob and then looked at her son and asked her son if he wouldn’t mind giving Jacob one of his balloons. She asked if he remembered when a little girl gave him all of her balloons – he said yes. I thanked her, and she gave Jacob a balloon.

He was very happy. I told Jacob to say “thank you” – he said “boom!” ( we’re still working on it. That, and hello and goodbye. He does, however, say “One and done” “Good burp” and, as I discovered today, “french fries” though that sounds more like “freh fra”. Go figure)

After we ate, we went to Giggles N’ Hugs – which is a phenomenal place. Jacob played for an hour. After playing for a while in the really-little-kids’ area (he likes the huge foam blocks) we made our way to the ball pit. He got right in. It was adorable! Then this little girl decided that she wanted to play with us. She’s 5. She also wanted ALL of my attention. Kids tend to want ALL of your attention, ALL of the time.

Thankfully, she didn’t hang out for too long.

Here’s the thing. I love kids. I really do. But we were having Jacob/daddy time, so I’m glad she left us to it.

“Think what you want, I’m currently solving world hunger in my head. I’ll fill you in when I learn how to speak properly.”

Jacob decided he was finished in the ball pit by emphatically stating “done!” and then he climbed out.

I was proud. The kid doesn’t mince his words.

He played on the slide – and went down by himself (which blew me away, because I’d never seen him do that before) and then he started chewing on some random toy (ugh!) which lead me to believe that he might be hungry. After a quick snack that consisted of a slice of organic cheese, organic buckwheat granola, a pouch of broccoli and carrot purée, and a pouch of beet and sweet potato purée, we were on our way home. (And he was about to take the dump of a lifetime – as usual. Yay!)

I put him in the bath and then Cherise read to him and put him to bed.

I guess I could have just said: we went to the mall, rode the carousel, ate some fries, went to a play place and came home.

We had a great day, and I just had to share…

Boom!