We Managed to Make It Really Special

I had plans for Easter break. Big plans. The kids were going to have a good time and enjoy the only Easter break they'll probably ever experience in their lives. Living in the Vortex of Perpetual Winter, I cannot ever remember having this thing called Easter break (or even spring break) in my entire life, and I grew up here. I wanted to make this memorable for the kids.

Thursday was their first full day off I wanted to take them to the Children's Musuem in Pittsburgh. We got museum passes for the year that include several in the city, and the Children's Museum was the kids' top choice. So we set out to have a good time.

I purposely dawdled a bit over breakfast and straightening the house before we left, because getting caught in the tail end of rush hour traffic is fun for nobody. I left around 10, which would put me in the city about an hour or so later. We'd snag a quick lunch and spend the afternoon enjoying the fun.

Except we hit traffic. Lots and lots of traffic. And we crept for miles to get into the city. And Micah started fussing loudly and insistently. When I asked him what was wrong, he said he had to go potty. The question that will forever go unanswered is whether he was worked up over the traffic jam and had to to potty from nerves, or if he was upset because he had to go potty and was instead sitting in traffic. Either way, by the time we finally got into the city, past the baseball field hosting an opening day game (if I knew anything at all about sports, I'd have known getting into the city on Thursday would not be easy), and ended up at Subway for lunch. I ushered Micah to the restroom where it was discovered that his boxers weren't as clean as they were when we left home. Don't tell anyone that he went commando the rest of the afternoon, and that those boxers in the restroom trash are ours.

But no worries, the museum was ahead! Micah's impatience was focused into a chore when I handed him my membership card to "pay" with. He loves doing that. Except I didn't read the fine print well enough to realize that the Children's Museum was not one of the reciprocating museums our membership covered.

For crying out loud.

But it was too late to go find another museum because Micah was inside and saw the fun. I ended up paying for the afternoon. I learned my lesson that day, trust me. Check the list of sister museums before we head out next time! But the kids had a good time, when Micah settled down and decided to have fun instead of running full tilt from thing to thing. But that's the norm, of course.

That was Thursday. Friday we went to my parent's cabin, but Becky had to work until 4 so we were late getting there. We had to leave at noon on Saturday to get home for shindigs hosted at our place. Is it still relaxing if it's less than 24 hours in length? Let's go with a 'heck, yeh.'

At least nobody was forced to go commando.