A very special morning

This is a hard weekend for my sweet Elliot. His daddy disappeared and his brother both at the same time and he doesn't understand. He keeps asking about them, trying to understand where they went, but it is hard. He just doesn't comprehend it right now. The reality is that daddy is at a conference and Erik went to spend the weekend at his Grandparents. So poor Elliot had to stay home with me.

In all honestly as much as I say one on one time is important, Elliot and I have spent a lot of time together this summer. Almost the entire summer Erik was in school 5 days a week which left Elliot and I time to fill together, but this weekend is different. Even on those school days are on a schedule dictated by Erik and our time is limited. So when I saw how sad Elliot was yesterday when everyone was gone I decided to make this morning special for him.

Special doesn't mean expensive and I haven't taken him to the zoo in a couple months, although he did go in June with his Grandparents. So we headed over there bright and early, as soon as it opened really since it was a Saturday. He was up early today so we had a lot of time to waste before heading over there. I have to say being with Elliot is like a break, he doesn't get into too much trouble when he is alone, his main issue is that he has to be in the same room as me. I used to this my advantage. I needed to go through old clothes and decided to enlist his help and he was exited to do so. In comparison his brother never liked to help or be told what to do in this age, so it was nice to get some chores done with a kid who wasn't napping.

Then off we went to the zoo. I decided today we would walk and not bring a stroller since he would mostly want to be out of the stroller anyway and it would burn some good energy. I figured worse case,  I can carry him at the end when he gets tired and I would get in some exercise, but he never needed to be carried.

Elliot was so excited about his private day at the zoo. He was held 100% of the time, he had all my attention and he dictated the schedule. He was positively glowing he was so excited about this excursion. He remembered exactly what animals were there, demanded to be held when he wanted to see better and then walked on to the new animal when he was ready. In all honesty a perfect trip to the zoo. It was also refreshing because not once did I have to scream, yell, or chase after a kid who runs away. A perfect morning.

One of my favorite things is that I would tell him the name of the animal and he would really try hard to pronounce it like kimono dragon or orangutan. When we were looking at the orangutans, a boy about 5 or 6 came up to us and started calling them monkeys and I was barely paying attention. Then I noticed Elliot was correcting the boy and saying, "no orangutan." He's such a little smarty pants.

When we were done with our visit Elliot was so sad he refused to leave. He didn't throw a tantrum, but I had to carry him he was having so much fun being the boss and having his special day. We ended the day by talking about our favorite things and he told me he loves animals, but the flamingos were his favorite. He also rattled off a long list of all the animals we saw that day so I am sure what his true favorite was. I just know he really enjoyed himself this morning.