Better Than Christmas

Ari's been pretty interested in Helicopters lately. The interest was sparked by a culmination of things: his toy helicopter, us jogging past the helicopter landing pad at the hospital, driving past car accidents on the freeway where life flight was called in and he loves having me make up stories about him as a heroic helicopter pilot.

So, the other night I was struck by an idea... I was out sweeping the driveway when I heard the life flight helicopter fly overhead on the way to the hospital. I immediately dropped my broom and ran into the house yelling "Ari, Ari, hurry get in the car, there's a helicopter landing at the hospital" (pretty sure I freaked everyone out I was so frantic). I threw him in his car seat not taking time to buckle him up (we were only going like 6 blocks). I didn't even make it into the front seat before he was giving me a lecture on how it's not safe to not wear your seat belt, so I buckled him in and away we went. I was trying to make up for lost time so I was driving slightly over the speed limit to which I kept hearing a little 3 year old behind me say things like "Mom, you can slow down, it's ok", "Mom, your going kind-of fast, so it's not very safe." I know, I really was not winning any responsible parenting points.

Anyway, we got to the hospital (safely) and pulled into a parking spot really close to the helicopter. We didn't get to see it land, got there just in time to see the pilot walk into the emergency room so we decided to wait. Ari was SOOOO excited. He came up in the front seat and was jumping up and down yelling "were gonna see a helicopter fly fly fly fly fly" and squealing with delight. We sat there for about 15 minutes while I told him over and over and over and over about why the helicopter was here, what the wind sock thing is for, what's it going to be like when it flies away etc... After about 20 minutes I was starting to worry that it was going to be parked there for the night and I would have a devastated 3 year old on my hands. After walking up and taking a closer look at the helicopter and the windsock we headed back to the car to get warm. We had about 10 minutes before we had to be home when the pilot came back out followed by a team of medical personnel wheeling out a bed. We talked about how sad it was that someone was so sick...but it was really hard to stay sad, we were going to see the helicopter FLY!! They loaded up the patient, started up the propeller, turned on all the lights, slowly hovered then took off over out heads.

It was like Christmas in the car, better than Christmas. Ari was freaking out, WE HAD JUST SEEN A HELICOPTER TAKE OFF!! We scrambled out of the car and watched it until it was just a tiny dot in the distance.

He's been talking about it ever since. He wants to be a pilot when he gets big. He wants to drive to the hospital and watch the helicopter every 5 minutes...

We had so much fun hanging out in the car waiting for that helicopter. I think Ari's gong to be asking me to tell him the "story of Ari and Mom and the helicopter" for at least the next 5 years;) It's so fun to see a child get excited. I have to admit, I'm often tempted to buy stuff for Ari just to get a glimpse of that excitement, then I remember there's a little thing called "time." It's free, more memorable and generally lasts a lot longer.