Choose Your Own Adventure

When I was in elementary school, I was a big reader (still am) and one of my favorite kind of books were the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books - If you aren't familiar with them, you should check them out as soon as you can. I would read them over and over, making different choices each time, and watching how the story unfolded with just one element changing. I recently attended an Usborne books party and was reminded of these kind of books, and an idea started to percolate in my mind. I decided to have a "Choose Your Own Adventure" fun day with Wyatt. I had a vacation day coming up, and nothing in particular planned for it, so it was perfect timing. This was our first time out of the gate, and I already can't wait for the next one.

First Choice of the Day - Breakfast:

Choice 1 - Pancakes at Slappycakes
Choice 2 - Donuts at  Pip's Original Donuts
Choice 3 - Breakfast at home - Kid's Choice - anything you want that we already have

Wyatt surprised me with his choice, but ultimately decided to go with Choice 3, opting for a hot chocolate and a strawberry pop tart, much like he does many mornings. I shouldn't have been too surprised, our boy is not much of a morning person, and it takes a while for him to get excited about the day. We still need to make it to Slappycakes one of these days though!

Pop tarts also make a great hat

Second Choice of the Day - Adventure One

Choice 1: Chuck E Cheese's
Choice 2:  OMSI
Choice 3: Oregon Zoo

Wyatt chose Choice 1 on this one, I wasn't surprised at all, we are members to both the zoo and OMSI and he was been to both many times. He has been wanting to go to Chuck E Cheese for the very first time for months now. He was quite overwhelmed at first, I don't think he played a single game for the first 10 minutes, he just walked around and looked at everything. He found his groove though and soon he was slipping tokens in the machines like an old lady manning the slots in Reno. In typical Wyatt fashion, he was talking to everyone and having a great time. Since today was all about Wyatt, we ordered our food, but Wyatt got to decide when it was time to take a break and eat, so I sat and ate pizza while he wandered around playing games. This is one of the best parts of Chuck E Cheese - the number system that you get on the way in, and the armed guard at the door that doesn't let you leave without a child with a coordinating number. I still can't handle not seeing him regularly, but it does make me feel okay about letting him be independent while i eat a few pieces of pizza.

Kid Size Air Hockey with a new friend that kept bumming tokens off him

Mama's Favorite - Ski Ball!! 

Taking a Little Ride with the Mouse Himself

Pizza/Churro break - Showing off his tickets

We spent WAY longer at Chuck E Cheese than I had planned on, so choice 3 had to be adapted since it was pretty late by the time we got out of there.

3rd Choice of the Day - Mini Adventure 2

Choice 1:  Powell's City of Books
Choice 2: Petsmart (to check out the fish section)
Choice 3: The Mall (for the play area and Thomas train table)

He choose Door # 2 (After initially asking if we could go to OMSI still). He absolutely loves checking out all the cool fish they have, and he asked (for about the 10th time) if he could get a frog for our small tank that Stingray Steve-Gold the Betta vacated when he moved to his new bigger apartment. Today was a good time for it, so we added to our family and brought home an African Dwarf Frog. He's actually pretty cute.

Meet Slimey

Final Choice of the Day - Dessert

Choice #1 - Take Slimey home, and then go out to Papa Haydn for Cake
Choice #2 - Get pie from Burger King and eat it on the Couch
Choice #3 - Take Slimey home, and then go back out for ice cream at Rimskys

Wyatt was feeling pretty tired by the time we got to our final choice, and he was ready to be back at his house, so we went to the conveniently located Burger King (its in the same parking lot as Petsmart) and Wyatt got a Hershey Sundae Pie and I got a Snickers Pie, and we all went home to enjoy them. Slimey didn't get any pie, but he did get a new house, and some would say that's even better. Not me though, I'd go for the pie.

All in all it was a pretty great day - Wyatt was responsible for making all the choices and he thought that was pretty cool. Kid's don't get to be in charge of their destiny very often, and  I can see this becoming a regular tradition that gets more sophisticated as he gets older. I'm already excited to start planning the next one. I think next time we will try printing out the choices for him to read since he has been doing so well with his reading.

If you would like to hear the day in Wyatt's own words, here is a link to his video recap -  Wyatt's Choose Your Own Adventure Day Interview

Don't forget to Subscribe to his YouTube Channel while you are there!