I know it's been a while since I've updated my blog, and I apologize to the one person who actually logs on from time to time (JH). It's not that I haven't had anything to say and not even that I haven't had time. Really, I waste hours every day. I don't even know what I do with my time. But I don't do anything productive, like updating my blog. That's not what this entry is about, though, so I'll move on.
We had a Perfect Day a couple of weeks ago. We really did. Don't brace yourself for the punchline: there's none.
Brad spent about a week in Philadelphia for a review course and my awesome brother Tod came to visit during that time. He was overdue for a visit anyway, so I talked him into coming while I could use an extra hand around the house. Since I had an extra person to help, we decided to head over to Philly for the day. I had heard there was a great children's museum there and I thought we might actually get to see Brad while we were there, too.
Now, most of my stories have something to do with how everything goes wrong, how I can't believe the crazy antics of my kiddos--especially the two bigger ones--or how my life is completely spinning out of control. It seems to be entertaining to everyone, so I will continue with my typical self-deprecating style next entry. I'm almost always good for a laugh and an "at-least-I'm-not-HER" now and then, right?!
But this isn't that kind of story. In fact, I hesitate to go into much detail because anyone who reads this will be jealous and think I've somehow gotten my act together. NOT TRUE! I'll preview the story by saying this: everything
went exactly the way it was supposed to. Really. I'm not making it up. If you're not interested in reading about our amazing experience (because you're not going to end this with a feeling of supperiority as you realize your stories are never as embarrassing as ours), stop reading now.
Here it is:
We were able to get out of the house without anyone shedding tears. We left a mere 20 minutes late (anyone with kids knows this is HUGE). There was no line at Starbucks. The address of the children's museum didn't come up on the GPS, but when I searched for it by name, it did. Even better! We made it onto the turnpike and all the way into Philly without incident. Until we drove up in front of the "museum." It was a run-down, apparently abandoned building with a faded sign that read "Please Touch Museum." Since this isn't a typical Hochstetler story, you won't be surprised that I had a vague memory of a random checkout clerk at a grocery store telling me sometime
last year that the museum had moved into a new building. I called the museum (yes, I remembered to write the number down and I even remembered to bring it with me) and found out they changed the name of the road it's on and I was able to bring it up on the GPS after all.
Here's the part of the story when I would usually go into great detail about how I drove around in circles while yelling at the GPS and begging Jonah to just be quiet for ONE MINUTE of his LIFE while I figured out how to maneuver out of the horrible traffic jam/accidient/construction/confusing roads in order to get where we were going. That didn't happen. None of it. We changed our course and arrived without confusion at the new and improved museum about 10 minutes later. There was free on-the-street parking right in front of the building. Jonah made it all the way into the restroom before he pottied. Jackson, Jonah AND Lucy sat patiently while I
didn't wait in line--because there wasn't one. They accepted credit cards (no one carries that much cash, believe me), we got our tickets, and walked right in.
The kids played. They investigated. They cooperated. They shared (except when a little girl got ahold of Henry a couple of times: Jackson freaked out and I had to intervene). They remained pleasant in spite of skipping naps. We ate lunch there and didn't drop any slices of pizza on the floor and we didn't even spill milk all over our clothes. I expected everyone to lose it by 3 at the latest, but they were still having fun at 4, so we headed over to Brad's hotel.
When we got there, we went swimming. I even remembered to pack ALL of our bathing suits! There was a kiddy pool. What hotel has a kiddy pool?! When Brad finished for the day, he joined us and we all swam for a while. Jackson, who absolutely hates swimming, jumped in over and over, including one time when Brad wasn't even looking, but that's another story.
After we swam, we cleaned up and got dressed for dinner. We found an On the Border online (our favorite chain restaurant!). We called ahead to reserve a table and waited only about 20 minutes to be seated. The food was awesome and there was--get this--a girl walking around making balloon shapes. I'm not kidding! Jonah got a Spiderman and Jackson got a penguin. We finished dinner, headed back to the hotel to drop Brad off, found our way out of Philly in the dark and all the way back to Harrisburg without a flat tire, traffic jam, or getting lost. We finally arrived home around 12:30 am and the kids all got their pjs on and went back to sleep without a fuss.
I'm serious. That was our day. I couldn't possibly make this up.
There were only two dark spots (that's the opposite of bright spots, right? Even though no one says it) in our day. The first was at the restaurant, when we heard a loud POP and looked over to see the most painful look of horror a 4-year-old is capable of on Jonah's face. Fortunately, Tod had tipped the balloon girl really well, so when she heard the POP and ensuing wail coming from our table, she was there in about 30 seconds to replace Spiderman's destroyed head.
And when we were headed back to the hotel to drop Brad off, we were suprised to come suddenly upon a toll booth as we re-entered Pennsylvania. The toll was four dollars and we absolutely could not scrape it together, mostly because Tod spent his last five bucks on getting a new head for Spiderman. The booth attendant was completely unsympathetic and really had no solution for us. We finally talked her into taking our license number and letting us through so we could get some money and return to pay.
That's it: there's no twist or surprise ending. That was our Perfect Day.
But you might log in next week to see if there's a photo of Brad in handcuffs when he's arrested for failure to pay a toll. We could be in serious trouble if they had secret cameras and tracked us down even though we gave the wrong license number and most certainly did
not return to pay the lousy toll. Oops!
I guess if that happens, you can all laugh at us and celebrate that little bit of Karma that headed our way because we rejoiced over our Perfect Day. And you can all go back to thinking your life isn't so bad compared to ours.
