Cotton Candy

I'm no supermom, I can admit it, but I try my best to create fun memories for my girls. But sometimes you should just follow your gut feeling to just pack it up and go home. What I learned this past weekend is that if you have that feeling numerous time, ya really should listen.

Sunday was a big Kite Festival near here and I thought it would be fun for us. We get there and follow this mass of cars through the maze of parking. I watch the cars in front of me take the last few parking spots near(ish) the park and I'm directed to far-far away parking. So here is GUT FEELING #1 to just turn it around and head home. I tell Tess that maybe this is a bad idea and instantly she starts to well up. I'm not one to give in to her crying but this really did sound like it was going to be fun. So I keep going.

After we get to the far-far parking lot I ask the car next to me if we were supposed to huff it all the way back to the festival. He said no, there was a shuttle. Ok, I thought, maybe it won't be that bad. So I get the girls and the Sit and Stand Stroller and decide to keep Gracie in the car seat, ya know, just in case she decided to take a nap while at the festival (who am I kidding?) I walk over and see a LONG line of people waiting for the shuttle. GUT FEELING #2 to go home!--but I don't act on it.

After waiting for a while it is my turn to get on the shuttle van. It has a door like a bus where you have to squeeze up a few steps, but it DOES have a wheel chair lift, so I think ok, we can do this! The guy opens the door and just looks at me. "Can we use the lift for the stroller?" I ask. "No," he says, "I don't know how to use it." I started to say that I could probably figure it out considering I worked quite a few van wheelchair lifts during my work at the retirement community, but really don't feel like debating with him with the masses behind me. GUT FEELING #3: don't keep going-time to turn around, but somehow I find myself struggling to get Tess on the van, fold up the stroller and then carry the car seat onto the van where we will all be standing.

The worst has to be over, or so I think. We get off the van and find we still have to walk over a few soccer fields to get to the festival. No big deal except that with all the rain we've had the field is one big soggy muddy mess. GUT FEELING #4: really, this is it-turn around! However, I've come this far and I was in no rush to try to get back on that van again.

So I start to push my 50 pounds of offspring through the mud. I'm walking up on the hill and the stroller starts to slide and all I can think of is the stroller and my babies sliding down the hill in a mud slide. Somehow I keep this from happening but the stroller keeps getting stuck. I mean stuck so that it won't budge--at all. Stuck so that I have to put all my weight into it to get it to move AND we have to do this through the whole soccer field. It would be easier if Tess wasn't in the stroller but she's not dressed to be wading through the mud so I just keep pushing.

We make it and finally arrive at the festival. Did I mention they were expecting about 25,000 people? The kites are cool but Tess wants to see the kids area which is through gravel-not little gravel, but the big rock kind of gravel. So now I'm stuck again, this time in the opposite of mud, using all my strength to push the stroller again.

Tess spots cotton candy. Alright, maybe a special treat will help everyone feel a little better. Oh, boy it's three dollars. I look in my wallet and I have...three dollars. I hand a very excited Tess a big bag of pink cotton candy. She takes one bite and stops. I can see on her face she doesn't like it. What child does not like cotton candy?

About now I think everyone is ready to head home. Gracie was getting a little fussy so I take her out and put her in my Moby Wrap. So now I trudge through the mud with her 17 pounds strapped on my chest and pushing Tess in the completely stuck mud again.

Yeah, a good workout, but I canceled all that calorie burn by finishing off the cotton candy in the car. Should have listened to my gut feeling(s).