Playland Nightmares

My lovely 19 month old niece, Sidney, and Beth are visiting this weekend.  This morning we thought it would be really fun to go shopping.  I can't believe that I forgot what it is like to go out with a toddler.  I swore when I had toddlers that I would never forget, but I did.  One thing I forgot is that toddlers won't let you look at anything for more than one second.  Then you either have to move on or endure some screaming or dismantling of shelves.  Beth managed to get what she needed to get but only because Sam, Kira and I were all trying to keep Sid occupied.

"Call ... the police"

After that we went to the McDonald's Playland.  I also forgot about how McDonald's Playland is Dante's fifth circle of Hell, but as the stay-at-home mother of toddlers, one of the only cheap, socially acceptable places to take your kids in the dead of winter.  You KNOW that when you go there you are going to have to eat disgusting food, put up with noise and other kids, utter filth ("Mom! That kid just puked down the slide!") but it's your only opportunity to go OUT so you get excited!

Every playland I've ever been in so so loud because they are, for some inexplicable reason, built like echo chambers, and it's not just the kids screaming and having fun that is so annoying, there is always at least one parent who is trying to get their kid's attention by saying his/her name 50,000 times.  Today that kid was named Chelsea.  Chelsea (or Chels) wouldn't come out of the tubes that snaked around the ceiling so her big dad had to go up and try to fish her out, but she was way faster than he was so when he got up to the top he rested with his giant exposed butt crack right above Sam's head.  We left.  There's a good chance Chels is still up there somewhere unless her dad finally caught her and strangled her to death. 

Toddlers of any age aren't easy to take anywhere that isn't for the sole purpose of their own fun, but toddlers that are potty trained are the worst.  After Sam was potty trained he was on a world tour of public bathrooms; the grosser, the better.  Mitch actually had to one time utter the sentence, "DON'T LICK THE URINAL!"  I remember (now that I'm thinking back) how whenever I'd take the kids to the playplace, as soon as we'd get our food Sam would say, "I have to poop."  Oh, how I wished he was still in diapers during those times because I'd have to pack baby Kira up and haul all three of us into a stall and then wipe him while she was doing contortions in her carseat so she could touch the walls and bathroom floor with any and every part of her body.  Those were sweaty times.  I am SO GLAD those days are behind us.