when family day gets ugly

what hurts today is having planned a day of activities that our kids didn't enjoy. well i might as well just lay it out there, right? truthfully, it was just the main activity of the day that was a disappointment. having read the weekend section of the Washington Post we decided to whisk the kids away to a "sprayground." hell yeah it sounds fun. i was even willing to squeeze myself into a bathing suit and join in. (you may not realize the importance of this, but i'm not ready to write about it yet.) anyway, the day started out well. we told the kids to put their bathing suits on under their clothes. immediately they began guessing where we were heading:

tubing!

rafting!

grand canyon! (what tha...)

shit. they are setting themselves up for disappointment. quick, distract them with something shiny!

our first stop was a little bolivian dive out in the burbs that has awesome salteñas. it was a hit. we ordered in spanish, proving once again to big brother that we still know more than he does because seriously he's EIGHT and truly believes he knows everything. next we drive to the afore mentioned sprayground, essentially a fountain that you can walk around in which we are big fans of these days. a drive that should have taken us maybe 20 minutes took us well over an hour because we were too stubborn to ask for help and we were fighting because babydaddy was mad at me for using mapquest instead of goggle maps for directions.

literally the timeline went something like this:

2:30 we arrive at disney-looking suburban shopping center parking lot

2:30-2:59 we change a diaper, lube up three kids and two adults with sunscreen, and begin the walk to the fountain

2:59-3:03 we walk slowly, hoping no one will notice that we are city folk even though our stroller gives it away because we've seen 152 freakin's Gracos in 2 minutes and oh my god people are staring!

3:03 we settle in at a bench and kids begin stripping down to bathing suits

3:03 and 30 seconds: big sister grabs crotch in desperate attempt to keep herself from peeing so babydaddy takes her to a restroom

3:05 big brother, after much coaxing (well, one minute's worth) cautiously walks towards the group of 20+ kids who are having the times of their lives dodging the intermittent squirts and blasts of water

i am not kidding you 3:07 big brother returns and says that he really doesn't think it's that fun

oh no oh no oh no oh no

so he sits down and does nothing

3:10 big sister and babydaddy return from restroom and big sister can sense the "this ain't cool" tension in the air

3:11 big sister tests out and big brother re-attempts the fountain

3:13 big sister runs screaming out of the fountain because she was looking down the hole that the water shoots out of and got a mega-dose of chlorine straight in the eye. one kid down.

3:16 (true story) big brother runs screaming out of the fountain because he was looking down the hole that the water shoots out of and got a mega-dose of chlorine straight in the eye. two kids down. at this point baby has decided she is not going to enjoy this either.

3:17 i try to keep myself from crying because in just about 13 minutes our plans have gone to shit.

3:18 babydaddy says, we've got to be flexible

wow. ok. wow.

i'm not gonna lie, we were disappointed in our kids, in ourselves, in the suburbs. it really sucked. but we were planning to have margaritas at rio grande in that same shopping center so hell if we were gonna leave before dinner time. so we started walking.

then the clouds parted and we found an REI with a rock climbing wall. we walked in, we signed up, the kids waited for about 70 minutes QUIETLY AND PATIENTLY for their turn, and they each climbed the wall. and they had the time of their lives.

dear God,

thank you so much for rei's in shopping centers with fountains that disappoint.

amen.

now for margaritas.


moral of the story:
sometimes we completely miss the ball with our kids and it breaks our hearts and we feel like shit because we let them down. and we also wonder if next time we tell them that we have something fun planned for them they'll really freak out and not believe that we understand what fun means to them. but babydaddy was so right. we have to be flexible. because i've learned that having kids is something that means no matter how hard and fast you are moving forward, you have to be willing to completely stop and change direction at any moment.

for your kids.

p.s. when i say suburbs, i mean way the hell out there, not just 15-20 minutes outside the city where i work and where all my cool friends live...