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Parenting

Waterboarded by the God of Fun

Sitting on the edge of the porch, she dialed the numbers on the borrowed cell phone.  “Pick up,” she pleaded in her mind.  The rings felt like lightyears.  One, two — she knew at three she’d go to voicemail — “Hello?”  He was there.  He answered.  He’d come for her.

(I’m realizing I only have 16 more days to wrap up this short story in my For the Love of Blog Month, so tomorrow we’ll meet mystery man.  This poor girl.  She’s already been blown up and chased.  I want to give her a break to eat some Swedish Fish and grab a mani pedi, but there’s no time.)

***doodl-oodl-oodl return to regular bloggery***

Yesterday we spent the day at Six Flags, so basically, soaked through to our undies for ten solid hours.  (This was mainly due to riding Thunder River three times in a row right at the beginning of the morning, not because of an incontinence issue.  For realsies.  On trip two down the river, I ended up directly under the falls, like I was being waterboarded by the god of fun.  The photo above shows what a waterfall does to my high bun.  It splatters it apart like hair chum.)

I am not Fun Mom.  I know, sometimes an Instagram feed can give the wrong impression.  I try to be fun-ish, but my idea of quality time with my kids is when Elliott sits next to me and we both read books silently together.  From time to time, I try to rise above my natural boringness.  Alex was insistent that we do the water/amusement park thing this summer and I spent weeks quietly freaking out in my head about this.  I was counting down the days till my demise, and when I woke up yesterday, I was silently begging baby Jesus to make me funner.

When we strapped into the van, I looked the kids in the eyes and said, “I know you guys really want to go to Disney, and we are looking into it.  Consider today your Disney audition, because if you spend all day fighting and complaining, that will not make me want to spend a whole week listening to the fighting and complaining.”  In that spirit, we set forth.  See, Fun Mom.

Y’all.  We had a blast.  I mean, it is impossible not to laugh hysterically with your kids when you’re all standing in your water shoes together getting buckets of water dumped on your heads.  And every time one kid popped out of whack I’d lean down and say, “Disney audition,” and they’d pop right back in.

Climbing up nets while being sprayed with water made me feel like we were in American Ninja Warrior: Family Edition, and they were all, “Come on, Mom, you can do it!” as I hiked up my Land’s End swim skirt and made it to the top.  I tried to wear my Sitting Suit, but Alex seemed extremely concerned:

Me: I think I’ll wear my new Sitting Suit to the water park.

Alex: I think that suit is…great…you know, for here.  Locally.

Me: What’s wrong with my Sitting Suit?

Alex: I just think, at the water park, you know, there are no dolphins for you to train.

Me: It’s comfy.

Alex: It’s dorky.

Me: This from the man who wears zip-off dad-pants.

Alex: Touché.

I was actually glad I didn’t wear my Sitting Suit, because it’s a little challenging to pee in (Dolphin trainers must just pee in the ocean all over Flipper.) and the dressing rooms were disgusting.

What is up with pool bathrooms, anyway?  Have you noticed this?  Everything is always wet, and there’s toilet paper everywhere, like every few minutes a pack of gerbils runs through and shreds soggy paper all over the floor.  Why does the toilet paper end up everywhere in soggy heaps?  Can we all just agree to pick up our own toilet paper and get it in the proper receptacles instead of trying to papier-mâché the floor?

On one trip to the bathroom, I was in one stall, Evie was in the stall next to me, narrating ev-er-y-thing, and one of the park employees came in to clean.  While cleaning, she was on the phone.  On speaker.  With a man.  So I can only assume the man heard everything we were doing and saying in the bathroom.  This is one of the bonus Six Flags offerings, like Flash Pass, and we didn’t even have to pay extra for it.

All in all, the day was crazy awesome and I found myself saying over and over, “I love my kids.”  They started to get eyeball-rolly about it, but I wouldn’t stop.  I love my kids.  I don’t just love them, but I love spending time with them.  Sometimes I forget, you know?  When we’re all home in the summer and starting to come unglued from all the togetherness and I start to feel like flames will shoot out my eyes if I find one more yogurt tube stuffed in the couch, I forget that we’re fun together.

I think being soaked to our undies with recycled river water reminded me.

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