Gong Show

What a morning.

Hmmmm. It was a free day.
The options mulled over in my mind...clean the closet or check out the shoe store at the mall? Shopping won, of course, though now I do think my morning would have been more successful had I stayed home and cleaned out the closet.

Oh, we had good intentions. It would be a lovely Mother-Daughter trip to the mall, with the three little angels in tow. (As it turned out Dad even stopped by to see us there.) I would get some errands done and finally spend the gift certificate I got from Nu for Christmas on some cute shoes. Uh-huh.

Unfortunately, the shoe store in question was filled with shoes with bows, funky strappy sandals which I would ADORE if I knew they wouldn't be a death trap for a mother of 3 to get around in, shoes covered in 80s florals (which I had enough of in the 80s, thank you), and 85.00$ Converse runners. Hmph.

Ok, fine, so at least I can mail that letter that has been sitting around for a few weeks, right? In the post office, I spent a good 7 minutes paging through the address book that Nu PROMISED me the address was written in. Only to come across something scribbled unlegibly (is that a word?) in the wrong letter section.

I should have seen the direction things were going at this point and headed for home. Nevertheless, I stuck around to try on 4 shirts, 1 pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, none of which fit me. Thus increasing the frustration level. And I stuck around to find a mother's room to nurse my daughter...which, when I found it, was completely FULL of one mother's humonguous stroller, self and pouting teenage daughter. Grrr......

Finally we headed for the vehicle, where I nursed my baby in peace in the passenger seat. Then we headed for, wait for it....
McDonald's!

I feel I need a disclaimer here. I am not a McD's mom. Occasionally we do stop by the drive-thru on a very busy, late sort of day...maybe once every 4-5 months. But Lesina had been asking me all morning, and I had been considering bringing them as a treat, so yep, we went to McDonald's. We sat inside and everything. The meal went very well. Then we went to the Play Place. Oh my.

Were it not for the development of cultural slang, I would never have the right term to describe our time in the Play Place. Gong show. Yep.
Now, to be fair, I have not properly socialized any of my children in Play Place type areas where they are INACCESSIBLE to adults while they are playing. We have stayed away from these places, and today we paid the price.

All was well until, after a few times down the slide, Mekaia decided to settle down on one platform of the ENCLOSED, NETTED, COMPLETELY INACCESSIBLE structure and not move another inch. Was it early onset claustrophobia? We may never know. But he couldn't, wouldn't move another inch. Rather, he became the director of traffic, yelling at the poor children as they climbed past/over him which direction to go, in 2-yr-old Mekaiese. Then we treated the entire room of quiet, well-behaved, ever-watchful parents and children to a little show. This show included begging, coaxing and commanding Mekaia to come down, and out of the play structure lest we leave without him. Then picture me at one end of a plastic tunnel motioning to Mekaia to come, while hiding periodically to get him to come 'find me' and Mom at the other end, cheerleader style, saying "Come on Mekaia, keep going, come on, keep going, go see Mama, you can do it!!!" All while everyone in the entire room stares.
There was no other way. I had to do it. I climbed into that horrible play structure. On all fours I rounded the first corner. I ascended the tube to the top. It was small. It was plastic. It wasn't that clean. And it smelled vaguely of sweat. Then I pushed the poor little scared boy through the next tunnel, and down the slide. Good thing the tunnels were all transparent because the audience got to witness every moment. Out of the tunnel slide Mekaia and I popped, to the wild applause of my Mother and one Helpful Lady.
Then for the grand finale, Mekaia pulled the 'limp whiny boy' routine on the way out, leading to further public humiliation. And hopefully now you can see why 'gong show' was just the perfect descriptor. Also, if it isn't clear by now, Mekaia will not be allowed anywhere near a Play Place for at least the next year.