I’m back! Hello, 70-something degrees, I missed you terribly.

Jul 12, 2012

Hello everyone!

Back from my trip to visit Grandma and the Aunts down in North Carolina! We had a great time. Had a lot of new INDOOR experiences. Because in North Carolina, last week was either a) 105 degrees and humid as hell or b) raining like crazy with lightning and thunder. Not a lot of time spent at the park, let’s just say.

The kids were rock stars on the plane, as always. I actually thought we might get through this trip airport-incident free. I am an idiot. We met Daddy at baggage claim, who was looking very, very cute — a week without his family was good to the man — got our suitcases and car seats, and started heading out. BY THE WAY — my suitcase was the FIRST one that came out and our car seats were numbers 4 and 5. I am telling you guys, that is the kind of shit I LIVE for. I almost started the wave but the other passengers were not cooperative. Haters.

So we get our stuff and start heading out of the airport via the Up escalator, when my daughter (I think I need to start using “blog aliases” for my kids. If you have suggestions, let me know) decided she was going to stop walking. Yup. Had enough. All done. No more walking. My son and I were already halfway up the escalator when she made this decision, so she and Mike were stuck at the bottom. My boy freaked the fuck out, turned around, and started trying to run down the Up escalator while screaming “DADDY!!!!! I LOVE YOU, DADDY!!!”  We may have caused a scene as I tried to drag one child off the escalator and Mike tried to push the other on. Good times.

Sometimes my life is like one of those overly dramatic “Not Without My Daughter” type movies. I am played by Ashley Judd (she gives good crazy), Mike is played by Liam Neeson, and our kids are named “Merciless” and “Fucking Nuts” (two first names, like Sarah Jessica Parker).

I was not planning on posting today, but I was working on tomorrow’s post about the national treasure that is Sky Mall magazine and I decided that it deserved its own, separate post. So that one is coming tomorrow.

Good to be home!

Getting my money’s worth.

Feb 15, 2012

Seattle has a lot of child-friendly activities. We have a Children’s Museum, Zoo, Aquarium, etc. My kids and I have done them ALL. And quite frankly, I don’t think we get our money’s worth. I mean, we get our money’s worth in the sense that I have found an activity that will get the children out of the house and distract them for at least an hour or so including travel time. So that’s awesome. But my kids are not ones to linger. There’s no enjoying the moment, staring at something in wonder. No sir. We blow through these places like a tornado. “Yeah Mom, that’s nice. What’s over there?!”

Pacific Science Center: We went last weekend as a family. $42 dollars for the 4 of us. I may have said “$42? For the DAY?” out loud. And they woman behind the ticket booth may or may not have been unamused. This place has it all — a water exhibit, multiple rooms with all kinds of hands-on stuff to mess with, robotic dinosaurs that move, a butterfly house………..the Blands were in and out in an hour. DAMNIT!

Aquarium: Oh the fucking aquarium. I shit you not, the kids and I can do the whole thing in 15 minutes, tops. I try to get them interested in everything, but honestly, there’s only so much you can say about a fish. “Look guys! Look at it……swim!” I have friends who can spend hours there. HOURS!!! Unless there is some exhibit where they are masturbating the sharks that I have been missing all this time, I don’t know how they do it. (Come on. That wouldn’t grab your attention for at least half an hour? You can’t lie to the internet.)

The Children’s Museum: The Children’s Museum can be a great place to distract your kids for a good hour or so. If you have normal kids. If you have kids with an attention span of any sort. If you have kids for whom playing with the water feature does not involve dumping a bowl of water down their shirts. If you have kids who don’t try to eat the clay in the art room. If you have kids who walk, instead of run everywhere. If you have kids who don’t try to lick the Lego exhibit. Then, perhaps, you can have a more leisurely visit. But if all of those things happen in one trip, like they do to me, then your visit might be of the quick and disgusting variety.

Zoo: How I love the zoo. I’m going to shout it from the rooftops — I love you, zoo! Now THAT is a place where I get my money’s worth. Not because my kids slow down and take the time to really absorb seeing an orangutan sleeping (Those orangutans are some lazy fuckers. I am not even sure they have eyes or functioning limbs). But the zoo is so very HUGE, that not even my kids can spend less than an hour there. God bless you, zoo.

The Seattle Center: Sounds big, huh? It’s not the Seattle Bits and Pieces, it’s the Seattle Center. But man, what a let down. For example, they have an annual Winter Fest, and every single year Mike and I take the kids thinking there will be hours of entertainment. And every year they have one inflatable clear ornament with a rubber reindeer inside, and a model train village. That’s it. Now, the model train village is AWESOME. It is huge and detailed and I love it. And so do my kids. They particularly love chasing the train around the village, mowing down babies and parents with video cameras and grandparents in town for the holidays, leaving nothing but carnage in their wake. They do a loop in about 5 minutes. Sometimes we can convince them to go around again. And then we’re done. *sigh* Basically, if you’re looking for a big empty space with an Orange Julius, you’re in luck at the Seattle Center.

Now don’t get me wrong, I still take my kids to all of these places. I am hoping that there is an age we have not reached yet that will make them slow down and spend some time being curious about what they are seeing. And worst case scenario, they get out of the house for a while and get to see something different. The drive itself takes about 30 minutes each way to any of those places so………there’s that.

And pause……….PAUSE……….

Feb 3, 2012

I swear at my kids constantly. Silently, but constantly. If you had a camera trained on my face during the day (which I would not recommend…..nothing but snack making and butt wiping going on over here), you would see me say things like this to my kids.

“Boy, PLEASE get in the (pause pause) car.”

That “pause pause” was the word “mother fucking”. Mouthed silently and with my child’s back to me, but meant with every fiber of my being.

I have found my pauses to be the only way to get through certain moments of my day.

“No, I didn’t bring any (pause) snacks because we are going on a 10 minute (pause) car ride to your (pause) school.

“Boy, please stop saying ‘blanket poop’. It is irritating your (pause pause) sister which is irritating (pause pause pause) me.”

“Children, this is what is for your (pause) dinner. If you don’t eat your (pause) food then you won’t eat again tonight. And you can (pause pause pause pause pause pause) go to bed.”

The kids probably think I have a rage-induced speech impediment. AND I DO.