I am ridiculously lucky to be able to take a lot of time off this holiday season, including all of the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Before Christmas, Shannon and I decided to make the most of this time by doing fun stuff with the girls each day. Early this afternoon, we headed over to the local bowling alley to turn a coupon for a free game into the Tassava family’s first-ever experience at the lanes. The girls were very excited.
However. When we arrived, the attendant told us that the whole alley was going to close down for a league tournament in just a few minutes. The girls were very bummed, and only partly mollified by a promise to come back the next day. Knowing we needed to salvage the afternoon with some sort of special outing, we went back out to the car to talk about an alternative. After a few minutes of conversation (Shannon, Julia, and me) and grumping (Genevieve), we hit on the idea of going to an indoor playground about 45 minutes away. (Such is small-town life that you have to drive most of an hour to find such a place.) We Googled up some directions and headed there.
The drive wasn’t bad, but both girls soon showed off their inborn travel-hating trait that makes us very leery of venturing very far from home – say, the city limits. After distracting the girls with everything we could, we found the playground. Admission was cheap and the place was relatively uncrowded. Julia started exploring right away. Vivi, on the other hand, was reluctant to do anything at all, and only gradually warmed up enough to try some of the toddler toys. Finally, after about 45 minutes, Julia convinced her to go into the playground itself. They played for a good half hour together, before Julia started getting tired out. Of course, Vivi was still raring to go. I worried the we were either one or both would have a meltdown, but Julia – being a great sport – dragged herself through the playground a few more times.
By this time, it was almost dinnertime, so Shannon and I decided to get a fast-food dinner on the drive back home, then head straight to a huge holiday-lights display at a farm outside of Northfield. We’d planned to see those lights on Christmas night, but the girls had been way too tired for it. They were game for our new dinner-and-drive idea, so we found a convenient McDonalds and then headed back towards home.
The drive was not a pleasant one. Both girls whined incessantly about “sore legs”, about being bored, about wanting to go home, about where in the world we would actually find these lights. After a solid hour of driving – not much in the grand scheme of things, but a transcontinental trek to Julia and Genevieve – we found the farm, which was in fact pretty incredible: a colossal light display put on by the family that owns the farm. The girls enjoyed driving around the displays a couple times, then we headed back home.
That drive was the shortest of the day, and it was only 7:30 p.m., but the girls were trashed, and acting like it. Speeding home, I took a shortcut on one of my favorite gravel roads. I was pleased that it both cut our drive down by a good ten minutes and that Shannon found it a bit dicey. Soon enough, we were rolling into the garage, and then upstairs for the bathroom routine and bedtime. The girls were probably asleep thirty seconds after I left the room.
I hope they rest up for the bowling tomorrow.
I remember those days. Our kids however could play in those places for HOURS. Then I would be the one whining to go home. And yes, car travel with young girls. Might as well just stay home and stab a fork in your eye.