Stop Thinking About Me

Gary came home from work to find me half asleep on the couch and Liv and Holden cutting paper into confetti size pieces in the middle of the living room floor. I was exhausted and willing to let them do anything that would keep them quiet while Gray-bee was upstairs napping. Not one of my best plans, but it went surprisingly well for minimal half asleep supervision.

Gary realized that dinner was not happening so he agreed to Liv’s suggestion of going to Cafe Sabor for dinner. We all got our coats and shoes on and headed out the door and walked the short distance to the restaurant. You gotta love “Kids eat free on Tuesday Night!” deals.

As we were waiting for the check, Gary asked the kids if they would like to go to the Fun Park. Gary always has to show off with his great ideas and Super-Dad-ness. Once again he is the hero. I should have mentioned that we never would have gone out to eat if I had actually made dinner so really they should be cheering for mommy. They wouldn’t have listened. And it barely makes sense to me.

We walked home to get the car and off we went to the Fun Park. We called Mark and Mel and invited them to meet us there. Gary tried to convince Liv to play Laser Tag with him, but she still refuses, thinking that something bad will happen to her because of a House episode she saw forever ago. In fact Gary and I can’t remember what episode she is talking about, but we both believe her. She has an awesome memory.

We got the kids little wristbands to go play in the Soft Play which is like a McDonald’s play land, but it is four times larger and they encourage the parents to play on it, too. Gary entered the Soft Play with one goal. To get Gray-bee to not hate it. He would not stop screaming while his dad made him have fun. After the traumatizing experience of going down the slide with daddy, Gary decided to just hold Gray-bee and watch the kids as they emerged from the same slide. This seemed to calm him down. Holden had no fear and loved the fast slide and he loved that Gary was waiting for him at the bottom.

Here is where the story takes a turn. Everything seems to be going well. Gray-bee is calmed down checking out the slide action with daddy, Liv is running around making her way back up to the top, I am on my way to find Liv, and Holden, well he got bored. His solution was simple, “I think I’ll pull the fire alarm.” I had no idea that it was my sweet angel boy turned Juvenile Delinquent. I was worried that there was a real fire. I frantically searched for Liv because last I saw both boys were close to Gary. When I got to the bottom I found Gary aka Super-Dad with all of the kids. He was walking back toward me, toward the Soft Play. He told the management that it was Holden and he figured we might as well let the kids play since all the other kids had evacuated. We got Soft Play all to ourselves, we just had to put up with the piercing fire alarm that the Fire Department couldn’t figure out how to shut off. We must be pretty desparate for entertainment.

Mark and Mel showed up in the middle of the fire alarm fiasco and they chose to brave the humiliation and shame with us. They eventually got the alarm turned off so we didn’t totally ruin our own evening. We got some tokens and played tons of the arcade games and I realized that I have the potential to throw our family into financial ruin when I become a compulsive gambler. The worst part is that I would make a terrible gambler. I played the Deal or No Deal arcade game and both times came away with only seven tickets each time. Yet, I wanted needed to play more.

When it was time to go we said good-bye to Mark and Mel and started to load the kids up in the car. Gary was driving and as he was making his way out of the parking lot a car backed into us. The driver was a young girl. She had just said good-bye to her two guy friends who immediately made their way back to her car when they heard the crash. Everyone was fine, but she was very shaken. She felt terrible and tried to keep it together, but eventually started crying. Gary had me back up and drive forward so he could better inspect the damage done to the car and then he got her information.

When Gary opened the car door to switch places with me I acted on the prompting I felt and I walked over to this girl, and completely out of character for me, I gave her a hug. In “girl law” hugs make girls cry harder and that is exactly what happened. I gave her a few encouraging words and got back in the van.
You have to understand how huge this is for me. I am not a “huggy” person. When our dog, Sparky, died and Mel gave me a hug, I gave into “girl law” but I still felt awkward and didn’t know what to do. I was like the robot who could cry.

Gary dropped the van off at the repair shop and he will be driving my parents 1960-something baby blue truck to work for a few days. I’m sure we could arrange for a toilet or a bathtub to be lovingly placed in the back to complete the hill-billy look.