You Can't Make This Day Up

There are some days where at the end of it you realize that maybe you should have just stayed home. Like today.
When Matt got up we decided to skip gymnastics. He has a cold, and I didn't really feel like chasing him around gymnastics when he's extra cranky. And, he didn't want to go.
I should have planned a quiet day in. You know, Matt is sick. I have a cold.
As if.
Since I'd be promising Matthew a trip to Toronto on the GO Train I decided to take him. He was excited. By about 10 we were ready to go. Mike had checked online and was sure there was a train leaving the closest station to us (I didn't think there was weekend service). When we got there it was locked up. And we had about 12 minutes to get to the GO station 11 minutes away.
The fact that Matthew kept saying "where's the GO station" and I kept saying "we'll never make it" did little for Mike's driving skills. And in our hurry he hit a car.
We missed the train.
No one was hurt. Thank goodness. In my rush I'd already taken my seatbelt off.
One fight, one bathroom break and one hour later we got to the train.

Mike dropped Matthew and I off while he went home to paint.
The first couple of hours went well. We took the subway. We took 2 streetcar rides. We went to the Disney Store and spent forever.
Then we had lunch. Lunch was great fun. Matt decided that he wanted to have ice cream for lunch. I did try to get him to eat something else, but considering it was our fun day and I really didn't care, I let him have a banana split and orange pop for lunch. The waiter thought I was crazy after I explained that no, we weren't splitting first the entree and then the ice cream, but that I was having a sandwich and my toddler was having a banana split.
To make it seem better I said "don't worry - the bananas are pretty healthy." He rolled his eyes. Seriously.
And, while we were waiting for our lunch we played cars. I got pretty into it.
































Once we were done lunch (for the record, my roast beef sandwich sucked, but the banana split was really good). We did a little more wandering around the Eaton Centre. I'd promised Matt that we'd go and look at the big fountain.
The strangest thing happened. While we were sitting there all of the power in the mall went out.

No one knew quite what to do. All the stores closed and everyone just sort of sat not quite sure what to do. I took a couple of pictures, and then thought that maybe we should get going.
The plan was to take the subway, but I was worried about getting caught underground, and since it's actually a quick walk from the Eaton Centre to Union (I would normally walk it anyway, but Matt loves the subway ride) we went outside. Matt was really disappointed that there was no subway ride until ...
We saw several fire trucks go roaring down the street. It turns out that the power had gone out because there as an underground fire. So, we skipped our scheduled train to watch the excitement of the fire. There was a lot of smoke and then at one point a huge lot of flames. I think we watched for about 20 minutes. Twenty long minutes since Matt was on my shoulders the whole time.

When we finally figured out our timing with Mike we made our way back to the train.
I was pretty happy to see the train pull in because I was tired, Matt was cranky and I really wanted to sit. Matthew had other ideas though.
First he asked me for candy. I opened not one but 3 different bags of orange pop soaked candy. Each time the candy flew through the air. And then when it landed on the floor Matt tried to pretend he was a dog and eat it off the floor.
And then, since my feet were up on the seat across from me Matt decided to walk across "Mommy's Bridge". The thing is he walked over the bridge and knocked the emergency strip. Ooops.
There's a big rule in our house that you don't touch emergency stuff, and Matt knew he was in trouble. But, the poor kid was so tired and freaked out that he looked at me and burst into tears. And, then the GO train people came running and he got hysterical. So, there we were stopped at the station, they are trying to determine the emergency, Matt is freaking out and I am trying my best not to giggle and/or cry (or both).
Once I convinced them it was a mistake, that the black eye had nothing to do with the emergency strip and that it wouldn't happen again we were on our way. Matt cuddled up with me and fell asleep, and the Japanese tourists who happened to be on the same car as us came over and took pictures. (Thank goodness I had my hair done!!!)
After that we made it home in one piece.