advent calendar: day twenty

"visit uncle matt at the fire hall"

after a week or two of early, early mornings with ben and cranky, cranky mid-day crashes, i wasn't sure how the pre-planned "drive-all-the-way-to-burnaby-to-see-uncle matt's-firehall" was going to go. (that's about an hour and a bit away - longer with traffic) but cranky or not cranky, we were out the door at 8:15am and on our way to make it happen. ben was great most of the way to burnaby. i armed myself with the desirable soother in case of emergency which was a good call on my part. when we got to the hall, matt was heading out to another hall to switch trucks so ben and i were on our way to a tim hortons to wait for them to return. ben pointed out the skytrain that we were driving under and i thought, "why not?". we parked and hopped on the skytrain to ride a few stops then come back. we probably spent about 25 minutes getting on and off skytrains and ben thought it was pretty great.

when we got to the hall, ben had this very reserved exterior as he tried to contain his excitement. i don't know how to describe it but while anyone who looked at him might have thought he wasn't all that excited to be at the firehall, i could see that he was unbelievably thrilled to be there. he's a funny, little boy. ben got to get in the truck, try on masks and helmets, and pretend to drive.



while we were looking at the truck, a call came in, and all of a sudden, all the firemen were in action changing from their navy uniforms into the yellow suits. i was trying to get out of there as fast as possible so that ben wouldn't be scared by any loud sirens or anything but we were safe - no sirens blared while we were inside. we watched through the window as the guys jumped on the truck and we waved at them as they sped away, sirens roaring. very exciting stuff. ben and i were still sitting in the parking lot deciding whether we'd wait for them to come back or if we'd go home when the truck came back to the hall - they'd been called off because the accident wasn't as bad as they'd thought it was. the chief told matt that they could take ben around the block in the truck so matt came over to see if ben wanted to go. the potential loud noises that the truck might make kept ben from taking matt up on his offer. matt and i did our best to assure ben that it would be fun and there would be no sirens but ben said, no, he didn't want to go. i resisted yelling, "I want to go!" ;)

instead, we got to check out the kitchen, gym, sleeping quarters, fire pole, etc, etc. which was very cool. when another call came in, we said our goodbyes and got to see the truck fly out of the hall again. then we were on our way home. ben was asleep before we even got on the highway. a big day and a good day.