Preparation

I may live to regret this, but I let my 4 year old decide our vacation destination this year.  He studied skyscrapers for a week in school and he asked to go to New York.  He asked because he wanted to go up in a tall building in an elevator and look out the window.  I told him we could do that in Houston, but we'd go to New York.  And so it is planned.  We're going to New York.

 

A couple Fridays ago I took him to downtown Houston.  We rode the light rail to the stop closest to the JP Morgan Chase Building.  We got off with a map in our hand and walked like tourists through down town Houston (I'm not sure Houston actually gets a lot of tourists, but between the picture taking and the map, we certainly played the part.)  We rode up to the sky lobby on the 60th floor.

 

He was mostly impressed by the pool on the roof of one of the buildings (I'm pretty sure it was a hotel, but I didn't confirm) and the echo of the mostly tiled sky lobby.

 

Now that we've done that, and I've paid for the tickets to New York...he tells me that he was under the impression that there was a building named "New York."  But he is excited that we'll be going to the Statue of Liberty and the Central Park Zoo (a la Madagascar, although disappointed that the animals will probably not speak English) and in general the idea of Coney Island.  And the whole idea that there is a train like the light rail that goes under ground...well, that's just silly, how would we be able to get on it?