Get Me Out of Here!!

Collin has been at a conference all week which is 1.5 hours away.  He has been leaving before we get up and on a couple of evenings returns after Caden is asleep for the night.  For the most part Caden and I are spoiled because we get to see Collin a lot of times for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  So when he's gone like this it makes things a little hard on both of us.

To keep us busy we try and have an outing everyday, usually involving an errand or two I need to run along with something fun for Caden.  The other day we went to the library.  After the library I took him to the big park next to it.  We played for a long time.  He loves the park.  I needed to go to the grocery store on my way home and it was lunch time.  I have learned, don't ever take a hungry child to the grocery store if you want to keep things sane.  So I decided to take him to Burger King since it was right next to the park.  I'm not a huge fast food fan and normally don't eat at places like Burger King but I knew it would be quick and cheap.  Sometimes that's a good combo for a busy mom. 

This is the first time I've gone to eat somewhere with just the two of us.  Usually I meet up with a friend or Collin eats with us.  Of course there was a long line and toddlers are not big fans of lines (but who is?).  We are working on self-control and staying with Mommy.  He is doing very well and I was happy to get our food ordered without a major fit or a little boy wanting to run away. 

After we get our food we went to sit down.  He is a pretty good eater.  Sadly after one of his friends offered him a french fry that is all he asks to eat if he sees them.  But he ate a few chicken nuggets as we bargain with eat a bite of this and you can have a bite of that.  When he was all done, he looked at me and said, "get me out of here!!"  He was sitting in a high chair and I looked at him and said, "where did you learn that phrase?"  He smiled and said it again.  That night I was laying in bed and thinking about some of the things he says.  He doesn't watch tv shows and then it hit me where he got it.  He learned it from the book, Are you My Mother? about the bird who falls from the tree and looks for his mother.  At the end of the book the Snort (crane) carries him back to his tree and the little bird says, "get me out of here!"  I love how much he learns from books, which by the way, it had been over a day since we had read that book.  But he remembered that the bird was up high and wanted down and he was up high and wanted down.