Monday, October 24, 2011

Funny Thing About Plans

What happens when you make all sorts of wonderful plans for the weekend? Everything goes wrong...

Aiden and I had hopes to go see the cars from Cars 2 at the children's museum this weekend, but the line was so bad, we gave up.


Fortunately, the Denver Aquarium is right next door so we were able to adjust our plans a bit and still have a fun afternoon. The last time I went with Aiden to the aquarium was 10 months ago, and he loved everything. Now, he has a bigger vocabulary and is pointing things out, naming them, and also showing a bit more reservation toward the creatures he isn't so sure of...


Aiden had no problem with the duck - except that it was reddish which in his mental schema for "duck" (check out that devt. psych vocab!) makes no sense


So he had to get a little closer to inspect



He wasn't so sure about this guy - just in time for Halloween, he has been categorizing scary things as either "ghost" or "monster." This of course is a "monster" since part of being a "ghost" means living either in a tree or in water...??? I have no idea.


He was fine with the big green snake at first, partly because he couldn't see it.


Then not so much...oddly enough, even though it was living in a tree, it was categorized "a monster."



He still really likes the big blue aquarium tanks of fish, but won't get close to the glass like he used to. I think it makes kind of an optical illusion for him which makes him a little uncomfortable.



I liked that he got so close the big fish, even though he could fit in their bellies whole, he still really wanted to investigate them.



Tigers were no problem, he really likes big cats, though still calls them all "lions."


He had no problem with the sharks, but boy was he unhappy when he came face to face with a scuba diver at the window. It was peculiar the way he was saying "no!" to the diver - I don't know if he was worried that a person was in the tank, worried because the person looked so goofy, or if he even knew it was a person, but it really seemed to be messing with his mental processing of what he was looking at.



So that adventure was exciting, even though it wasn't what we planned on. 

Nothing ever is.

Point in case -- Frank (my car) blowing it's transmission on Sunday morning in Silverthorne.

Nothing is open on a Sunday, in case you were wondering. And also in case you were wondering, Allstate's 24-Hour Roadside Emergency Service, is the least helpful bunch of people EVER.

Thank God for nice guys in small towns.

We pulled over at an auto parts place and asked a couple of dirty messy men to help check the transmission fluid and fill it up.


Unfortunately, that did not do the trick. We got a tow from a nice guy who wasn't even open on Sundays and Mom drove to Silverthorne to get us then take us all the way home to Denver.

This blows.

My car is sitting in Silverthorne with a full tank of gas and a damn near new timing belt, and will probably be done for by the end of the week.

When we finally made it home, Kelly came over to watch a scary movie while Bubba ran around like a maniac after all the sitting still he had to do.


Thank goodness for good pals, helpful parents and a flexible kiddo.




2 comments:

Rachel said...

That sucks about the transmission! I freaking hate cars...

I'm glad the aquarium was fun though. I cannot believe the line was that ridiculous for the Cars thing! I did hear quite a few advertisements for it though, so that is probably why.

Unknown said...

Yeah, plus it was free