What a great weekend. I took Calvin on Saturday for his birthday present. Cassie said he had been so excited all week, she was sorry she had told him about it. "Is Amanda coming to pick me up today?" "I'm going to Amanda's house and I'm not coming back." "Where's Amanda?" I was so flattered.

I picked him up about noon. We had to get his booster seat so he could ride in the front seat of my truck, and turn off the passenger side airbag, which led to a long discussion about what airbags were and how they worked. I also got a long description of the time when a trash fire got out of hand and the fire trucks came. We went to McDonald's to eat lunch. I don't know how parents do it. He told me what he wanted (a Happy Meal, cheeseburger, no pickles, no onions, lemonade) but he would not wait in line with me. I'm half watching him and half paying attention to the line movement. We sat in the kid s' section, Calvin on a FryGuy seat and me in a Grimace seat and watched Lilo & Stitch. That kept him pretty occupied.

Then we went to Toys 'R' Us. We spent a lot of time playing with the Thomas the Train set they had out, and a lot of time asking "Can I have this? Please?" So cute. But finally, he spotted a Crash Test Dummies van, and he pulled it right off the shelf "I want this." so I knew that was the one he really wanted. On the way to the register, he spotted a Hello Kitty doll and said, "We need to get this for Malea." I was so pleased he was thinking about his sister that that went on the tab, too.

Then we went back to Wilton and played in the park for a couple hours. They have some really cool equipment. We played tag and hide-and-seek and dug in the sand with the diggers and ran around the sidewalk. The drinking fountain there did not drain, and he started drinking the water out of the bowl while I was on the other side of the playground. I yelled at him to stop as I ran, but he kept drinking, and I about puked. Who knew how long that water had been sitting there?

Then we went to the Jette Diner for ice cream and walked around the block while we ate. An ice cream cone in the hands of a five-year-old is a disaster. Good thing I had some wet wipes in the truck. All in all, it was a lot of fun. I'm thinking maybe we should make it a yearly tradition.