Muted response

Mommy is back tomorrow - hooray! Z continues to recap the countdown to her return fairly frequently ("...and then on Saturday, mommy will be home after we're asleep!"), but both boys and I definitely miss her lots and brief occasional phone calls aren't enough to find out how things are with her and to share the goings on here.

O has always expressed, shall we say, concern with some loud sounds. Many times when I take him into a bathroom, he'll first ask if the toilet/urinal is going to be loud, then (regardless of my answer) he'll put his hands over his ears when he thinks the toilet will flush. This has lately manifest with films as well; while watching Cars the other day, he asked me to "make it quieter" for a scene where there are semi trucks honking at Lightning. I obliged, but he still wanted it even "quieter" -- as in, muted. This afternoon when we *started* the movie, he asked me to make it quieter "for the loud trucks". They're like 25 minutes into the film.

Yesterday, with rain continuing to hinder outdoor plans, O and I met up with friend S and her son L at an indoor playtime at a lovely indoor community center. He'd actually been there before with mommy and kept talking about a large bounce house with a giraffe(?) -- alas, they were down to a little one that fit like one kid at a time (S speculated that one of the kids who plays a bit rougher may have damaged it last time), but he had a wonderful time both with that bounce house, a bunch of playmats, and a little kids roller coaster-y thing that he nicely took turns with other kids on. Then the weather was actually turning nice, so the four of us continued playing outside on swings and a jungle gym for a bit, where O continued to practice his new-found skill of rolling his tongue.

Today at long last O and I followed through on his long-term interest in Seattle's link light rail. Every time we go to the airport, he first starts asking where the train is and then talking about it once we see one approaching or leaving the terminus of the rail line. So it was time to ride this thing and see how it went. Mima joined in for the adventure (we did all of this while Z was at school). Alas, nothing's simple -- the only station that has parking was completely full, so I started driving parallel to the line, looking for street parking at subsequent stations. At the second or third stop, I finally found a pay lot, so we got out and waited for the train. As a bonus, mima and my Orca cards meant we got to ride for free. O was super excited and smiled through station after station. Just before the SoDo stop, the tracks cross a very high bridge... over a dozen or more other link light rail trains at what must be their storage yard -- O was extra pleased to "look at all of those trains!" We alighted at the downtown stop and picked up sandwiches at one of them Seattle food trucks that I hadn't yet explored, a tasty salmon burger for both mima and myself. (O declined to try it or the tasty garlic/parsley fries.) A quick potty stop for O (at the posh Benaroya Hall no less), and we were back on the train heading home to catch up with Z's bus. A nice morning adventure, and finally something to cross off O's young bucket list. Of course when Z heard about this, he was quite interested as well, so we'll have to make another trip of it in the near future!