Fun Weekend!
The weekend started off a little rocky, mainly because Erik's behavior has been so frustrating lately. Saturday afternoon, though, we kind of put our foot down and said we were going to have nothing but fun this weekend. I think it was a very much needed attitude adjustment for us all.
On Saturday we played game after game of Uno, Qwirkle, and Memory. We baked cake batter blondies*. We laughed and giggled and had fun. THANK GOODNESS. That’s how I want our family life too look.
We get way too bogged down by school, cooking, cleaning, laundry, homework, grocery shopping, responsibilities all the time. We need to stop and relax and let our kids enjoy their childhood.
We had lunch at P. F. Changs, which was a new experience for us. Erik and Elsa both insisted on eating with their “chomp sticks,” which meant we left a very good tip for the waiter. Erik’s verdict: “This Chinese spaghetti is the best spaghetti I’ve ever had!” Can you tell we never eat Chinese food?
On Saturday evening I thought we needed to continue the fun weekend, so I looked through my stack of Groupons and found admission tickets to Port Discovery over in Baltimore. I can’t believe we’ve never been. It was totally amazing. Easily the best children’s museum we’ve been to, at least for youngish children.
A couple of years ago someone made a negative remark about the place and said it wasn’t really for little kids, which is why I’ve never wanted to go. I do agree that it wouldn’t be worth it to take a toddler (admission can be pricey, plus parking, food and gas all add up to big bucks for a day trip from Germantown), but I think it would totally be worth it for ages four and up. Not something we can afford to do every weekend, but something we will have to do again sometime. I’ll have to keep my eye on all the Grouponesque sites.
Erik and Elsa couldn’t get enough of the “urban treehouse” in middle of the place. There was a huge, huge climbing structure in middle of the lobby. Instead of going up the stairs or elevator, you could climb up various ropes, go through tunnels, and all that fun stuff and end up at different floors. You could get back to the ground level by taking a big slide (if you could find the entrance). It was a little scary to have two kids running around this giant play area, even with two adults. We lost Elsa once, but quickly found her before I started screaming hysterically. It is big enough for adults to join in (and adults are encouraged to do so), but I didn’t find crawling around in tunnels to be all that fun. Call me a cranky old woman.
They had a ton of other stuff, including a toddler room. Elsa was totally unimpressed and ran out at the first chance. After climbing rope ladders intended for ages 4 and up, who needs a gently sloping maze?
Erik’s other favorite part was the water room. You can put on a rain jacket and crocs (sadly I didn’t see the crocs until after his shoes were soaked) that they provide, and have at it. He spent a long time trying to put together a big fountain.
I think it’s safe to say a good time was had by all. We did have a moment of panic when we went to leave. No one told us that our arm bands were number coded. As soon as we put our coats on, Erik started ripping off his arm band. When we got to the exit, they started checking our numbers to make sure we weren’t kidnapping some random child. Erik had no number. Thankfully they took our receipt as proof that he belonged to us, but I had a moment of mama bear panic.
One of the really nice parts of the trip: the drive was much faster than usual.
They opened up a toll road from very near our town to very near Baltimore just a few months ago. It was an easy, breezy drive with hardly any traffic. In fact, it was such a smooth road that I was sure we would get a ticket. I kept wanting to tell Mike to drive faster because it felt like we were sitting still, but then I’d look over and he’d be doing at least 70.
We also accidentally missed all the Ravens traffic. We had no idea they were playing, but we had to drive right by the stadium. The game was just letting out when we drove past on our way out of town. I’ve never seen such a seething mass of humanity. Everyone looked so grim that we were sure the Ravens lost. I guess they were all just thinking about their drive home.
Lessons for next time: Pack a lunch! This is always my lesson. They didn’t have any food available and there were not really any low cost options around. It is in a little square with a bunch of clubs and bars, so not really child friendly. There was a Subway, but there was hardly any seating. We walked a bit and found P. F. Changs, which was ok I guess. Port Discovery does have a set of tables where they encourage families to picnic, so we’ll have to do that. Next time I will also leave the diaper bag in a locker. It is no fun trying to haul a big diaper bag up rope ladders and though tiny tunnels.
*Cake Batter Blondies Review: Really fun and easy for kids to make. Kids love sprinkles, I guess. We didn’t use the white choc. chips in our first batch and I thought they were the most disgusting things I’ve ever baked. Seriously gross. They tasted strongly of boxed cake chemicals. Oddly, adding the white choc. chips changed everything. I don’t know how, but those white chips make this one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. Magic. I think Erik will be the Box Tops now that we have this recipe.