Ain't He Sweet?

Josh and I had a real good night together tonight. Adam had gone out for the evening and the little guy and I had already been to the outlet mall together making returns at four different stores. It's not always a fun thing to do, going to the store with Josh, but this time he had a little motivation to be good. He had spied one or two of those coin operated ride on toys that are conveniently placed outside of stores to tempt small children, and was so hoping for a ride on one. I have never let Josh ride on one before, and in the first store we went into he didn't use his "best listening ears" and I told him he couldn't sit on one despite his desperate pleas. But he would not be too discouraged, and was on his absolute best behavior in the remaining stores in hopes that he could earn some brownie points. This was the start of a very nice evening together. When a small child is doing his best to please his or her parent, the parent is going to be a little more, let's say generous, than normal. (Kid's make sure you learn this while you are young.) Let's suffice it to say that before we left the outlet mall, Josh got his ride on the Mickey Mouse fire engine.

So our good evening continued on together. We ate our supper together, just the two of us. I offered him a choice of reading our new storybook together or cleaning the basement, and much to my amusement, he chose cleaning the basement together. He helped me get the newspaper ready for starting a fire on our wood stove, and wrinkled much to much paper. He dusted the tables while I swept the floor. We shared hot cocoa in his new Sponge Bob mugs he received from our family gift exchange at Christmas. I helped the little guy with his bath, though we made sure that his bath toys would not go down the drain before we filled the tub. And then we looked at the new Highlight's magazine that came in the mail, thanks to Aunt Leta. After wards, we delved into our new storybook, The Jeremy Mouse book, by Patricia Scarry. I decided that I like her stories. By the end of our evening together, Josh and I were both in such good moods. He was tucked into bed very pleasantly with two of his tractors and I didn't hear another peep from him. I guess our good night wore him out. I like being a Mommy. :)