Rainy day visit...

This afternoon I had a visit with my Youngest, who loves to visit my home--- partly 'cause it's new to him, partly because Lucy is there, and partly because I have Legos there that he gets to play with only at my house. Today was no different--- he wanted to go to my house as soon as I arrived to pick him up, so we loaded him up into his booster seat and started off.

Around the corner from Grandma's, I asked, wanting to make sure he hadn't changed his mind, "You want to go to my house, right?"

"Yep."

As soon as I'd parked, he announced he was staying in the van. I suggested that we go inside the house to get Lucy, and then walk down to the nearby school playground, and he liked that idea... but wanted to wait in the van.

*sigh*

After making sure he understood that he was not to leave the van, which I could see through the open dining room curtains, I went into the house to deposit my backpack and put Lucy into her harness and leash. We fetched Youngest from the van and started walking toward the far end of my street, which dead-ends into the field at the back of the school. He insisted on holding Lucy's leash, and monitored her very well (she was behaving herself like a lady, unlike yesterday, when she'd twice pulled me off-balance when neighborhood cats tempted her too much!), then turned her back over to my charge in order to dash toward the now-visible playground.

After a few detours, including poop-scooping detail for Lucy (thankfully I had a bag in my pocket from Lucy's earlier walk!), we arrived at the playground, and I walked Lucy around while Youngest climbed around on the equipment. He commented that he should have brought his hood, since it was now raining quite noticeably. We found a section which looked like an old-tyme general store counter, and he "sold" me root beer, Sprite, and hamburgers... but insisted he was out of ketchup, mustard and barbecue sauces. *chuckle*

When he tired of that game, he climbed up to the top of the spiral slide and asked me to come up with him. I told him I didn't want to come up there because I was getting wet... and then admitted that I might as well come up anyway, and he agreed. So I walked up the steps to join him at the little roof covering the top of the slide, bending over to look in at him.

"Come in here, Mom!" he invited me.

I tried, but I couldn't bend down far enough to clear the roof... and my right knee was already threatening to give out on me if I tried to kneel, so I had to tell him I couldn't.

"Why not?" His big brown eyes peered up at me earnestly.

"My knee won't let me get down far enough to get in there. It's because I'm getting old. I'm not young like you," I told him honestly.

"Oh." He thought about that for a moment, then followed me back down the steps. As he started off toward the slide at the other end of the structure, he told me, "Well, you need to stop getting old, Mom."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Okay, son. I'll work on that."