Airport

Now that school's in session, I've been trying to talk Molly into going to fun kid places -- children's museum, zoo, etc. She's not into it. All she wants to do is ride a city bus. She's excited because there are bus stops near our house. All I can imagine is getting stuck in some scary part of the city with a crying toddler and being unable to get off the bus for another hour.

So while I think some more about how to make that dream come true for her, I decided to indulge her other request, which was to go see airplanes.

Molly's idea was that we would maybe hop on one, just to ride, and then get right back on another plane and fly home. I talked her down into just driving to the airport and hoping maybe we'd see a plane or two fly over before getting kicked out by security.

We were not prepared for how fantastic the Rochester airport is. They have this observatory area outside all the security areas, full of chairs (many child-sized) and a snack bar and floor to ceiling windows looking out on the runway. We caught several landings and take-offs, big planes and small. Molly had all sorts of questions about the fuel trucks, the hangars, whether planes crash into towers (?!?), whether helicopters land on the runways, too.

We got to talking about the difference between how airplanes land vs. helicopters, which Molly then felt compelled to experience. Here she is doing an airplane landing, then a helicopter landing.

Last night, right before she fell asleep she said, "Mommy, I feel like I want to go to the airport every day."

Kate was a good sport, too. She spent most of the time chewing on my checkbook and climbing onto tables. We'll definitely be back.