Everyone is back home and packing up for tomorrow, so the weekend is close to over. I think we did achieve my goal of everyone having something to look forward to.
I ran the Frostbite 5-miler, and while my time was not spectacular (10:57 min/miles) it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was in the middle. I also went (by myself!) to a chamber orchestra concert in downtown Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon. Some other combinations of people went to a movie on Friday night. We had some friends over at one point, there was night skiing, the 14-year-old got to meet up with friends at the mall AND he cashed in his Christmas present to go see Wicked in NYC. He and I got tickets, and then my husband and two other older children came in to go see the American Museum of Natural History. We ate lunch at the Carnegie Diner and did a lot of reminiscing as we walked through Central Park. Wicked was pretty fun — a good Broadway musical to bring kids to. I forget how close the city is (1 hour and 50 minutes with no traffic, which there really wasn’t on the way there). Now that some of the kids are older we should probably go in more often.
But perhaps not with the toddler. My most vivid memory of the weekend may be taking my 2-year-old to the grocery store on Saturday. I have five kids, so I’ve had a reasonable number of grocery-store-with-toddler experiences, but this one was one for the books. I’m talking throwing bottles of mustard off the shelves, lying down in the middle of the aisle and screaming. Wow! I just had to laugh because it was so ridiculous.
Photo: From lunch at the Carnegie Diner & Cafe
Sorry about the grocery store; it does get to a point where the ridiculousness of the situation leaves us no choice but to laugh. Having gone through this 4 times already, I suspect you also realize that in the grand scheme of things, this stage is relatively short-lived.
I have to admit as sweet as toddlers can be, I am so relieved to be passed this stage. We didn’t have tooooo many bad store meltdowns, but I felt like one was always lurking around the corner and I did always feel on edge. Now, I happily send children off to get specific items in the store – they are basically unpaid personal shoppers for me at this point and I love this arrangement (they also currently think this is very fun/independent, and I know the next step is teenagers and by then I suspect the allure of being “Mommy’s helper” will have worn off.
And I don’t miss diapers. At all!
I’m so glad you two enjoyed Wicked. My son and I saw it when he was 13 or 14. Does your son still write reviews?
I would sometimes tell my toddler we would have to leave if he weren’t a “lovely shopping companion”. I hoped it would never come to that, but it did. And on a day when I really really needed paper towels and some other things in the Target shopping cart. But, I plucked him out of the cart, left the cart in the middle of the aisle (sorry, Target), and we left. That was the first and last time we had to do that. For many trips thereafter he let me know when he’d been a lovely shopping companion, and he was usually right. And 11 years later he was a lovely theater companion for Wicked. And 10+ years after that, HE took ME to dinner and to see The Music Man. So remember, it just gets better.
@Barb – I’m trying to get him to start writing reviews again! But that’s really his call 🙂 Looking forward to the day they start taking me to dinner!
I ran the Frostbite 5 miler, too! I ended up being satisfied with my time, even though I felt like it wasn’t going well during. I should train more hills, but . . . then I’d have to run hills!
@Meg – exactly! Although I tend to wind up “training” on hills just because it’s hilly around here…