Adam's First March Break

On regular school days, Adam goes to daycare across the street in the morning then he walks with his daycare group to and from school for the afternoon. For the March Break and other non-school weekdays, the daycare operates all day. So I thought, that as a treat, Adam could spend the mornings with me (and John who is more-or-less tethered to me) for some special excursions and then go to daycare for just the afternoon. Interestingly, Adam's requests got less-and-less elaborate as the week went on.

Monday: visit to the dinosaur museum, aka, the Royal Ontario Museum. Luckily, we got there before opening and the line for tickets moved really quickly. Adam's in a bit of a dinosaur phase, so he was delighted with all the skeletons.

Tuesday: a trip to a toy store to spend some of his Christmas and Lunar New Year money. That afternoon, he also got to go on a field trip to the library, where a magician performed. The magician might have upstaged the toy store.

Wednesday: a trip to the playground to ride his bicycle. It was such beautiful weather for it. Adam insisted on having the training wheels removed but then quickly changed his mind. Then there just might have been a cookie and hot chocolate at a coffee shop.

Thursday: another lovely day with a trip to the playground. We brought paper airplanes and landing strips of Adam's construction. Naomi got to tag along too. She wasn't very interested in the airplanes but did talk everyone into playing hide-and-seek. Adam rather enjoyed that, too.

It's interesting how even a trip to the playground with Mommy becomes a special treat after months of short winter days.

Friday: Adam spent the whole day on a field trip with his daycare class to Riverdale Farm. And they had yet another perfect day to be outside. I'm told that an uncaged chicken actually stole Adam's sandwich! His teacher reports that he was rather stoic about it and his response was little more than, "Silly Chicken! giggle, giggle." Some of the other children became unhinged and needed to move to the top of picnic tables lest the chickens be able reach even their feet.

Friday cont.: As a further treat, we got a visit from Jaclyn, Jacob, Norman, and Sarah for dinner. I went to curling so I missed most of the fun but I saw that there were clues and treasure maps galore. Pirates are competing with dinosaurs for the title of "Most Trendy Topic" lately.

Saturday: I can't even remember how he heard about them last year, because not many McDonald's sell them anymore. But he remembered about Sharmrock Shakes and was insistent all week that we would get one on St. Patrick's Day. So I did some research and let's just say that next time, while I won't phone every McDonald's in the city, I might phone more that just the one at Bathurst and Dundas, where the Internet claims to have spotted Shamrock Shakes. We had a little trip on the subway and the streetcar - entertainment in its own right - and we did procure Adam a Shamrock Shake. John soaked up the attention from many, many admirers.

On the way home, we stopped at the McDonald's across the street from our building for treats for Dion and Naomi, who was napping during our excursion. Well, lo and behold, the McDonald's right across the street from us, about 150 m according to google maps, sells Shamrock Shakes. D'oh!