Pennies In My Couch: Best. Park. Ever.

I am the type of mom that will go way out of the way and make 3 u-turns just so that we can go over as many railroad crossings as possible. Call me a softy, but I just can't resist when I know that the simple act of driving through a railroad crossing will light Jack's face with joy and fill him with such awe and amazement. Most people get disappointed or even angry if they happen to have poor timing and get stopped by a train, but I get disappointed every time when we don't get stopped by a train... we haven't been lucky enough to get stopped yet, but I know that Jack would absolutely die if we did! Each time I hear the train whistle I check the time and make a mental note to try to be at the railroad crossing at that same time the next time we're out... but each time we miss it.

And then I had a "DUH!" moment. There is a park right next to the nearest railroad crossing! So, I took the boys to that park on our next park day! I don't know why it had never occurred to me to take the boys to that park before that day, but it was such a great day that it was definitely worth the wait!

My OCD kid was a little unsure when I told him that we were going to a new park (I didn't tell him about the train- I wanted him to be surprised!), but when I told him that Grandma and Luke were meeting us there he felt a little better about it.

While we were waiting for Grandma and Luke to get there, I realized that it was the perfect opportunity to put Sam in the park swing for the first time! He didn't really care one way or the other about it. He just chilled. Which was actually perfect because Jack was very insistent that I push him "the most high that it can go" and Sam didn't mind one bit if I spent more time pushing Jack than I did pushing him!

As much as Sam didn't mind the swing, he was definitely much happier on solid ground

At that time, Grandma got there with Luke! Luke had fallen asleep on the way there, and so Jack got to have Grandma all to himself for a little bit!

And then, we heard a noise...

... and what did we see?

SURPRISE, JACK!!!

He was so excited to see the train! It was so fun to see him watch the train... it definitely got his imagination going! So much that it was hard to get him to start playing again rather than just stare in the direction where the train had disappeared! But, eventually we convinced him to join Luke and Grandma in playing on the playground!

Funny story: Jack saw a puddle on the bottom of one of the slides. He knew it was there, but he slid down that slide anyway and ended up sliding right through that puddle! I laughed and said "Well, now you're wet!" and he did his fake yeah-this-is-probably-supposed-to-be-funny-but-can-we-be-done-with-it now? laugh and said "Mom, let's change my pants!" I told him that he could play in his wet pants and when we were ready to get home I'd change him, just in case he got dirty again, and then I turned to take a picture of Luke. Once again, Jack asked me to change his pants, and when I turned to answer him, I saw this:

DUDE! You can't just drop your pants in the middle of the park!!! I laughed sooo hard! I managed to convince him to keep his pants on, and by the time we were ready to go home they were dry anyway!

Then, since Luke and Grandma missed swinging, we hit the swings again!