My Perfect Day

"My Perfect Day" by Isaac

No, even though he's pretty verbal, he's not writing essays quite yet. But if somehow we could assign a toddler such an essay, we might just discover that today was that perfect day. Isaac got to experience many of the things he loves, all before his 1:30 p.m. nap:

• Kindergym class -- tunnel, balls, slide, and the mini-trampoline
• the park -- sand, swings, slide, and other kids' parked bikes
• walk to the library (on the sidewalk along the street) -- cars, mail trucks, buses, and a backhoe
• the library -- books, change machine, little chairs, and giant pillows shaped like alligators
• walk back to the park (across a plaza) -- elevator, reflecting pool with waterfall, and lots of steps to climb up and down
• walk to the fire station -- fire trucks!
  

Isaac has only recently gotten interested in fire trucks, which he calls ha-has. It took us a little while to figure out what he was talking about, but then we concluded that fire = hot = ha. I think this may be his only "personal word" -- otherwise he does his best to pronounce the real thing. He also claims that fire trucks go "beep beep," like the Roadrunner. He beeps his nose as he says it. He's going to be shocked when he finally hears a siren close up.

It was a gorgeous day, which is one reason why we did so much walking -- Isaac walks like a toddler, which is to say slowly and inconsistently, stopping to pick up random things, and often taking off in the wrong direction, but I didn't mind dawdling outside in the 65-degree sunshine.

Speaking of which, I had high hopes for his nap. Naturally, as is often the case with high hopes, they were dashed. This is my favorite time of year to garden (at least when it isn't raining), and I was looking forward to getting some work done. (Soon it will be too late to prune the roses and apple trees!) Lately Isaac's naps have lasted at least one and a half hours, and sometimes as much as three hours, so my hopes were reasonable -- however, today he only napped one hour and 12 minutes. Phooey. I did get two roses finished, but I also spent a lot of time puzzling over the right shape to prune a Japanese maple.

Oh, well. I never said that it was my perfect day.