Friday/Saturday April 17-18th

Friday, April 17th
It was raining so we headed to Main Event for some glow in the dark mini golf, as promised. Frankie was *very* excited. Of course, the second he enters he wants to play everything at once. No one was at the mini golf, so we had the entire course to ourselves. I tried to keep Frankie focused on following the rules (meaning, not kicking the ball in the hole with his foot) and playing each hole through rather than jumping around from one to the other. He seemed fairly responsive, but I had to stay on him at every hole to do it properly. He digs the glow in the dark moonscape and pre-historic scenarios - kind of cheesy but when you’re three, it’s all cool. I let him climb on the “moon rocks” and he thoroughly enjoyed that. We headed to the games after that -- I generally put ten dollars on a card for games and when it’s gone, it’s gone. He played lots of skeeball and really enjoys the version where an alien taunts him into hitting the target. We played pool for exactly 20 minutes (about $2.17 worth) and tried foozeball (too hard). When he realized that he could trade in his points from the games for “prizes” he was delirious with excitement. He picked out three rubber balls, sticky insects and pop rocks. We left around 5:45pm to eat dinner at home and had chicken fajitas. We played with our new toys and read the three new books I ordered – Ben and the Balloon, The Great Balloon Race and Curious George and the Hot Air Balloon (I thought reading about balloons might substitute for playing with them sometimes) many times. He went to sleep around 9pm. (I also ordered Hot Air Henry and a book on constellations).

Saturday, April 18th
We had a very busy day! It was overcast and cool and we headed to eat breakfast at Galaxy Café. We went to Dart Bowl and Frankie bowled two games. he was so excited to be there than when we entered he wanted to say "Hi!" to all the bowling guys and waved at anyone who would look his way. I don’t know if you realized there is a pro shop there…we went and looked at the balls and I bought a t shirt – they are out of the ones in Frankie’s size but I will keep checking. It cleared up a bit so we went to Brentwood Park and played with Gertie basketball, and then jumped over to Hobby Lobby to pick out some craft projects. After going home and eating lunch, we tried to do a nap but Frankie was not having it. We “rested” and read books for an hour. Then, we made the suncatchers – a huge hit – and used our chalk pastels (also went over quite well because he can blend the colors or make them “hazy” as he says)…I had to work a little to keep him focused, but he did well with both. We went to Petsmart and looked at all the animals – Frankie really wants fish, I think. He is very amused by the “cat fish” because they have whiskers, of course. We watched birds and lizards, and then picked out a scratching post for Angus. Krista met us at home and we all played bowling on the deck in the yard as well as “chase” and basketball…then we went to eat at a place down the street that is pretty much like Waterloo Icehouse. Frankie was thrilled because I let him eat fries. We came back and he and Krista shared some leftover bunny cake…she left and it was bath time. He was so tired, he slept from 8:15 to 7:30am the next day.
Over the two day period, he only had one tantrum and I just walked away and told him I was sorry he was in a bad mood and frustrated and would be back when he was done. That seems to put a stop to it quickly. He talked very positively about his time at From The Heart.