Thanks to Tropical Storm Colin’s decision to flood nearly every major roadway that runs through Tampa, we decided to keep Derek home from daycare Monday and Tuesday. Since Christina works from home — though she wisely spent Tuesday working from a nearby Starbucks — Derek was all mine for both days.
That isn’t typically too tall an order. We usually kill time by walking to the playground three blocks from our house, or we can spend the morning at the beach or the afternoon at the city pool. And there’s always the backyard. But as Colin dumped deluge after deluge on our neighborhood, it was clear going outside wasn’t an option.
What did we do?
Thankfully, there was Great Explorations, a children’s museum/play place in St. Petersburg. Two big reasons why this place rocks: 1. Derek loves it, and 2, it’s real close to the house, which is key anytime a tropical storm turns bridges and interstates into obstacle courses.
(Props to me: I renewed our one-year membership to Great Explorations less than a month ago and the thing has already paid for itself.)
So Derek took one giggly ride after another on the yellow, tubular slide attached to a big faux pirate ship. He jumped feet first into the ball pit. And of course, a trip to Great Explorations wouldn’t be complete if Derek didn’t sit behind the wheel of the miniature fire truck while pressing the button to activate the flashing lights.
Of course, that wasn’t all we did. Derek and I played with some blocks. We listened to some music and split a sugar cookie shaped like a flip-flopped after having lunch at Panera. Christina and I usually put a tight cap on the TV time, but given the circumstances, I let Derek watch as much Peppa Pig as he wanted.
Derek returned to school Wednesday morning, and as we made our way over the Gandy Bridge, he asked me a question.
“Did you have fun at the museum?”
“Yeah, buddy. Did you?”
“Yeah!”
Two days trapped inside the house with a precocious 3-year-old isn’t for the faint of heart. But in that moment, I realized that Derek appreciated our time together and all the cool stuff he got to do. That made it all worth it.
That, and when he hopped on my back while I was doing push-ups, of course.
Like I said, not for the faint of heart.
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