Lincoln etc

As some people know, on Wednesday, my middle child had her tonsils and adenoids taken out.  This is NOT about that and how i felt about that.  She came out of it fine.  Instead, it is about something else that I always knew, but learned again.

On Wednesday, Bec took Lucy to Children's Hospital early in the morning for her surgery.  It was me, Lily, and Lincoln.  Lincoln and I took Lily to camp about 9 and then we drove down to my office.

He was so excited to drive down to my office.  He kept chattering in the back seat as we drove down the highway.  We listened the radio, which always makes him very happy.  We parked on the street near Kiener Plaza and walked across the street.

We walked into the building.   He really liked the revolving doors.  We walked to the elevator as he asked, over and over again, what different things were.  We saw an attorney in my office and as he walked away, Lincoln asked "who was that man?".  He asked what the security lady "does".  When we got to the elevators, we hit the button and got on.

As it went up, he declared that "this is fun".  The doors opened and we walked to my office.  He strutted down the hall (until Tina said hi, and then he cowered attached to my leg).  We made it to my office and he walked around picking up paper and looking at stuff.  He almost pulled the plant of my window sill to the floor (of course the plant is essentially dead, so it doesn't much matter).

After we left the office, we walked down the street towards teh arch.  We passed two women taking pictures and Lincoln asked who they were.  We waited at the cross walks, as Lincoln marveled at the cars whipping by.  Finally, we made it across Memorial and we were walking on the sidewalk to the arch.  As we walked towards it, Lincoln continued to say "that's big" as he looked up at the giant arch.  Even I was amazed at how big that thing is.  We walked to the arch and touched it (Lincoln wanted to).

Then, he wanted to walk down to the river.  it was still high, though much lower than it had been.  The water was covering the street and parking lots, but you could walk down the steps.  We walked down and watched the water for about 20 minutes.  We talked about the men who were working.  We talked about the snow plows they use to clear the water.  We watched the birds find things to eat.  We sat on the railing and we just hung out.

After those twenty minutes, he wanted to go and, of course, he wanted me to carry him.  I put him on my shoulders and we walked back to Kiener Plaza.  Along the way, he tried to touch ever tree branch that was high in the air.  He bounced on my shoulders, looking around, and describing everything that he saw, including the girl in the sunglasses, the man drinking from a cup, and the woman who took a picture.

When we got up the hill, he told me he was thirsty.  I was thirsty too so we went to Hardees and got some lemonade.  We walked slowly to the car, wandering by the fountain of red water (something else that confuses a 2 1/2 year old -- why is the water red?)

We got in the car and we went home.  Lincoln and I hung out for about 3 hours Wednesday (after the Arch, we ran some errands) and it was some of the best hours of my year.  It is rare that I hang out with the kids by themselves.  I'm home on weekends and in the evenings, but they are all there.  It was great to hang out with Lincoln and just Lincoln.

I learned something I always knew, but needed to be reminded about.  Spend time with your kids (separately).  Lincoln has no idea how much fun that I had with him and he has no idea how much it meant to me.

In the end, I didn't work on Wednesday and, do you know what ...it didn't matter.  I still had work on when I got to work on Thursday.  I answered a few emails that afternoon while Lincoln slept, but for three hours I was only one thing -- DAD

Have a great day (or hope you had a great day).

Be Easy

-cp