It's been a long time since Ace and I had regular 'just us' time. As he's the first born - he and I had over two years of 'just us' time and then his sister came and he blossomed into the best big brother that any mommy could have hoped for. He's a traditionalist in many ways - as he gets annoyed by her presence, "helping" and her volume level form time to time, but since the start he has been great. Still his "just us" time is woefully lacking and sometimes it is pretty clear the toll that takes on him.
So Loving Husband and I set out to set aside some specific time to spend just with our boy to help him know that he is loved individually and just as much as before his sister's arrival. The boys have gone on hikes together, gone on a ferris wheel together, and many out and about activities. Ace and I have gone to coffee, to the movies, and the latest in our adventures a trip to the pet store for a scavenger hunt! I found a great print out (and the idea!) over at
Enjoying The Small Things and after I bundled up his sister for a walk with her dad - the boy and I were off!
He was quite excited to go as he loves the pet store. He was a bit confused when I first pulled up to the pet store trying to establish if we needed food for Pixel, but was excited to know there was more to the stop than just a simple errand. We got in the store and I handed him the clipboard and away he went!
I was surprised at how accurate the pictures were - yes granted we went to the same store as the sheet was designed from, but this was a print out from months earlier - you'd think some thing had changed or inventory would have changed a bit. Granted many of the items are general things found in any pet store but the Dora fish tank item was still placed immediately next to the pineapple one as pictured. Which is good because the boy was very insistent that it needed to be exact!
Ace had a great time looking at all the different animals and observing their behavior and what it was they were doing. Including the differences of 'toys' that they had in their cages. He really enjoyed talking to the ferrets too. Thank goodness there was no "can we have one?" type questions. Thankfully, I don't think he quite gets that it's an option (for others) to buy them.
Most of the items were pretty easy to spot. He asked for help only a few times and the final item was REALLY hard even for mom to find. A picture of a barn. I assumed it was on a bag of food... but it ended up being at the top of an end cap (pretty large actually... ah well!)
In the end we found everything that was on the list except an iguana (they didn't have one) so Ace suggested that we find something that looked the closest to an iguana and count that as successful (his wording... not mine!) And indeed it was a successful activity. After we had spent a good hour in this store - we found a toy to take home to Pixel as I didn't want to just be loitering their store and asking them questions for no benefit to them at all. :)
We wrapped up our outing with a couple of errands where he got to help push the cart and pick some stuff out and then we grabbed lunch for the whole family and headed home to eat it together. It was a good time spent, just us!
