St. Louis, MO: Day 1

I decided to go to St. Louis to help my sister, Tori, with her new little baby when Tori's maternity leave from work ran out. On May 10th, Lincoln and I hopped on a plane and headed out to babysit little Alexis Tori Cox for five days.

Lincoln had never been on an airplane so I was quite nervous about the whole experience. We didn't get off to a very good start. I somehow chose the only row on the entire plane whose air letter outter thingy was busted out. Instead of a pin size opening jet of ice cold air shooting down on us, we had a coffee mug size opening jet of ice cold air. Immediately Lincoln was not impressed. He was scared during take off and landing so I held him on my lap. (Shh.... don't tell.) Once we were in the air, he warmed up to the idea of being on an airplane. I immediately started pulling things out of my bag of tricks and we started to play. About 10 minutes into the flight, I noticed that Lincoln's shorts were wet on the bum. How could that be? He was nice and dry before boarding the plane! After further investigation, it was confirmed that he had in fact wet through his clean diaper and was sharing the warmth with me. Unfortunately, I disobeyed the cardinal rule of flying by not packing an extra set of clothes in the carry-on. (Sorry Dad. I know I've disappointed you.) There simply was not room in the carry on because it was stuffed with goodies to keep Lincoln happy. Fortunately, I was able to take off Lincoln's shorts and set them under the huge stream of icy air for them to dry. By the time we landed, I was able to put those gross shorts back on Lincoln and I was dry too. (If you don't have kids of your own, don't judge me!)

We met Tori, Dan and cute little Lexie and they whisked us off to Dog Town. It was pretty late by the time we arrived so we visited for a bit and then crashed in our beds.

The next morning, Tori went to work and I was able to spend some bonding time with Lexie. Lincoln even bonded with her! The 6.5 hrs. flew by and Tori came home. It was time to play. We headed over to a beautiful park that is right by Tori and Dan's house. This park is enormous and equipped with playgrounds, water fountains, ponds, bike trails, paddle boats and even a zoo! We tried out the play ground first.



If you know Lincoln, you know he is obsessed with water. We found a pond for him to throw rocks into. He was content to do that for as long as we would let him. I was floored by how pretty and nicely taken care of this park was. Tori and Dan are so lucky to have something like this so close to them to use and enjoy.