house and kill time at Adventure Aquarium. Since I was trying to drag
out the time out instead of rushing through it, we had a much more
leisurely time; at one point, Jada and Aaron dipped their arms in the
jellyfish tanks for like a half an hour before they were ready to move
on.
But as a result of not going at breakneck speed, they started to
unravel towards the end, even though I had been feeding them steady
doses of snacks at strategic moments. Going through the souvenir shop
at the very end, I knew I had to buckle Aaron in and hold Jada's hand,
lest one or both of them crash into a display of fragile items or we
get indefinitely halted in a cacophony of "I want it, I want it."
But Aaron refused to get in easily, and Jada did a full-on body limp
move. So I jammed Aaron into the restraint and gave Jada a good
spanking. Water works and sirens ensued. From getting their coats
back on to getting them into the car to driving home to getting them
into the house, I couldn't see how this wouldn't be a painfully long
experience.
Enter Turkey Hill ice cream. The manufacturer was giving away little
tins of a new flavor at the entrance of the aquarium. I grabbed two,
tried in vain to convince the kids they'd get some as soon as we got
to the car, and set them up once I had buckled them both into their
car seats.
The most beautiful silence ensued. Even after getting everything else
in the car set up, I didn't fire up the engine for a good ten minutes,
just soaking in the stillness after minutes upon minutes of wailing
and flailing. When we finally did push off from the parking lot and
headed home, all I heard was quiet chomping and all I saw were smiles.
Is there anything ice cream can't do?
No comments:
Post a Comment