Time Well Spent

I picked up my five yr old grandson today after preschool and went out on our own field trip to my favorite store, Leftovers, Etc. This is a recycle store for teachers/scout leaders and artists. You never know what's there so I go about once a week. You can fill, I mean STUFF, a large grocery bag for only $7, and a kid can get a lunch bag for just a buck.

So off we go, first to get gas, which is still going down and is now at $2.24 per gallon, and helped ourselves to Cheetos and root beer to snack on during the 25 mile trip to the store.

He is learning sounds and how they go together, but hasn't really learned to read yet. He asked about every truck logo, every billboard, every thing...how do you spell ____, how do you spell ___ backwards? How would he know? He can't spell yet!

Well, we get to Leftovers and he immediately fell in love with the place. He filled his bag in no time and then began to add interesting things to make platforms and things for his super hero toys to jump from. We had a delightful time and though I could easily have spent another hour in there I knew he was getting tired.

He wanted to go to El Magueys and have his favorite, a "cheese-a-dilla". The menu said cheesy quesadilla, but the waiter translated just fine. We were in the middle of dinner when he asked how to spell "ortreat". I thought I missed something so I asked him to repeat and yes, he said "ortreat". You know, as in trick ortreat.

We were then 12 miles away from home and he quieted down quite a bit, then at the quarter mile mark from home his little head tipped to one side one last time and he fell asleep. That's the moment you know you have received much, much more than you could have ever given.

Tomorrow we'll be working on that Super hero platform.