Mini-bulldozer stupor

Daddy got up with Logan at 6:00 AM, staying home from work to give Mom a chance to get her University of Maryland students’ exams graded and prepare for the next week.  Funny how Logan has a sixth sense about when Dad stays home, and so he wakes up earlier than normal for it!  Normally Daddy is off to work at least 10 – 40 minutes before Logan wakes up (Dad’s work bus leaves at 6:50 AM).   This time, however, it was due to something a bit more mischievous.  Upon taking Logan out to the kitchen, he immediately launched into a fit of pain and writhed in Dad’s arms relentlessly, tears streaming down his cheeks.  Daddy noticed his drink cup straw was supplanted in one area in his mouth and so it seemed to him that teething might be the culprit.  A little children’s motrin did the trick this time, whew!   So it was that perhaps this past week Logan was in a fit due to two virus infections and a 2-year molar!  What a combo smack down!   At least we’ve hopefully nipped everything at this point.

The rest of the morning Dad and Logan took a walk around to pick up mail, the morning paper, and then off to the park for some playtime.  At the park, after playing for a while, we noticed a ‘bobcat’ mini-bulldozer picking up dirt and hauling it to a garden at a house nearby.  Knowing Logan loves trucks and construction equipment, it seemed to make sense to get a little closer.  Needless to say, Logan was enthralled.  When we got up close to the mini-dozer, he couldn’t take his eyes off it.  One of the gardeners working there offered to let Logan sit in the cab.  Without hesitation, Dad slid him on in and lowered the harness bar to keep him ‘secure’.  For perhaps 15 minutes Logan’s mouth was gaped open in awe and joy in sitting within one of his passions.  It was as if he was in a stupor, with a blank stare, unknowing how to proceed.  Food, drink, cookies, everything else was meaningless.  Eventually he came to, then started to feel around at the controls and buttons (keys were off and well away from his reach).  A little while longer and Dad needed to give back the mini-bulldozer to the gardeners.  Well, you would’ve thought Daddy had ripped off his arms!   The sheer anger and rage shot forth in lightning bolts of flailing legs and arms as I hoisted him away.  This was definitely not a teething or virus infection spasm!  To calm him a bit, we watched the gardeners shovel out dirt from the dozer’s front scooper.

Back at the playground for a while for a bit more play and to eat a snack, Logan’s nerves were finally de-rattled and calmed, and we proceeded back home.  By the time we got home, it was late for Logan’s nap-time and both Daddy and Logan easily settled down for a snooze.  Up at about 3 PM, Mommy had been working diligently and successfully in her ‘internet classroom’.  She took Logan of Dad’s hands so he could go to a Model Solar Car meeting, something Daddy started doing last year in which he volunteered to help get the event started and organized.  It’s purpose is to get school-aged kids in town interested in science by helping them to build a model solar car and then race it around a 100 meter track. Dad also created their website, called http://sunchase.org.  While Dad was away, evidently Momma got to experience another Logan meltdown, in which he was so uncontrollable, Mom couldn’t get teething gel or medicine into him.  Luckily for Dad, by the time he got home, Logan had settled down.

To end the day, Momma read books to Logan, Daddy flew Logan in his make-believe airplane, and both Mom and Dad got to have fun with Logan pulling at our waist and at the back of our heads, which is his subtle way of getting us up when we’re laying down… and telepathically informs us through no uncertain words “c’mon Mom and Dad, get up, I want to show you something else we can do!”