Fireman

After I picked up Riley from school last night, we were on a mission to get to the grocery store when the most exciting thing (to a two-year-old) happened: a fire truck drove by. As luck would have it, the fire truck was headed in the same direction we were, so we got to see the fire truck for quite awhile. It was pretty far ahead of us and ended up turning. "Bye bye, fire truck," he said, somewhat dejectedly.

I turned into a different entrance to the shopping center than usual, knowing full well that the fire truck had also decided to visit the shopping center. We parked and instead of walking into the store, I walked Riley down to the parking lot where the fire truck was parked. His eyes immediately got big as we walked toward the fire truck. And then the second coolest thing happened: a fireman got out of the fire truck! And he started walking towards us! And he reached out his hand to give Riley the sticker badge that he was holding! Riley was so excited that he could barely stand it. The fire man showed us around the fire truck and we got to look at all the cool buttons and ladders and hoses. After a few minutes, it was time for the fire truck to leave, and besides, we still had to go buy our groceries.

This dear fireman though was not through with Riley's experience. As the fire truck pulled out of the shopping center, he honked his horn, turned on his lights and gave a quick blast of the siren. If you could've seen Riley's face -- I have never seen him so excited about anything.

He insisted on sleeping with his fireman sticker badge on his jammies last night. This morning (and this should tell you how much he loves "Alice", his rocking horse), after we were finished getting dressed for school, he walked over to Alice and proudly put his sticker badge on her nose and proceeded to tell her about "fire truck".