My sister has this enormous park less than five minutes from her house. Just huge and fabulous. Giant wooden climbing structures, giant slides, monkey bars, hiding places…. kid bliss. Not that we would know. In the five months we’ve been here, we’ve never actually gone.
We always mean to. But it’s raining, or too hot, or we have something else planned, or it’s too close to naptime…. it never works out. Well, today was the day. We spent the night last night, and had no plans for today other than wait for my car to be ready, and not spend any more money (new a/c’s don’t come cheap. Oye.)
So we’re eating our pancakes and we can see sunny blue sky outside. Excellent! We dawdle over breakfast, do a little coloring, play “chase the cat”, surf the web a bit (Violet, not me. Seriously.), watch a few cartoons… finally consider getting up and going to the park…. and it starts raining.
But it’s just drizzling, so Suz and I decide that we have nothing to lose by driving over there anyway. Maybe it’s not raining at the park! Maybe they’ll get, oh, three minutes to play before the storm hits! We start telling them that this might be the shortest park trip ever, but that we’re going to give it a try. Problem is, the closer we get, the harder it’s raining. The sky is black. Suz sees the park, makes a U-turn and starts driving back home.
We’re trying to think up something else to do, and the kids are crying, and I’ve got nothing. They are begging, BEGGING, to go back to the park. Even in the rain. And – hey! – maybe it’ll stop! Maybe it’s already blown over! Maybe it’ll just be drizzling there, and the kids can play anyway. Hell – maybe it’ll be pouring, but with no thunder or lightning and they can play anyway. Anything to get the screeching to stop. Suz makes another U-turn.
We approach the park for the second time, and the sky is actually clearing a bit. This could work! Poker Face comes on the radio, and the peanut-gallery in the backseat stop crying and start singing* (you have not lived until you’ve heard Jonas sing “Ma ma ma ma ma ma po-ho-ker face”.) We’re sitting in the parking lot, and the rain is letting up, and the sun is coming out, and the kids are happily singing, and we’re thinking “Ok! Not a wasted effort! Sure, driving all the way out here, then all the way back, then all the way out here was kinda weird, but it looks like all’s well that ends well……” when Jonas stops singing to announce “I HAFTA GO POTTY!”
We never did make it out of the car. Maybe next week.
* The CD player in my car is broken, so we listen to the actual radio. At first I was worried about the lack of kid-music options, but after 5 months of Backyardigans-free driving, I’m thinking I may disable the CD player in my other car when it returns from Italy. Having the kids learn all the words to Top-20 hits is… interesting. Observe –
Here comes trouble! 