Where there's smoke...

A few days ago, one of my colleagues--and friends--called. She told me she had uncovered an old toy during her recent move, and she wanted to give it to Louis.

"It's a fire engine," she said. "It's huge and metal and the ladder goes up to the ceiling."

Oh, wow. I wondered who would be more excited: Louis or his Baba.

I picked it up this afternoon and hid it in the back of the minivan. When we had parked and Baba had come out to greet us, I asked them to look through the back window.

There it was. The fire engine of their dreams.

Louis's eyes were huge, and his father couldn't get his hands on it quickly enough.

If you know my husband, you know he loves not just trains, but also old toys. I could see him hurrying to get to the truck so he could find the name of the maker and figure out how old it might be.

Louis didn't care about provenance. He was ready to play.

"We'll need to clean it up a little," I told him.

"We can clean it NOW," he said and sprinted inside and down to the basement, with his father following closely behind with the new-old toy.

I'm not sure how much cleaning happened. But while I was cooking dinner, I heard lots of siren noises and the yelling that is required during play-fire-fighting.

Luckily for Baba, Louis was willing to share his new toy and they had a terrific time playing together with the engine.



Is it huge? Oh, yes.

Is it metal? Absolutely.

Does the ladder go up to the ceiling? Louis would say so--and he would be only too delighted to show you just how high it can go.

I think we'll be fighting a few fires here this weekend.