Unorganized Chaos

We went to the Boston Children's Museum yesterday, the kids and I, and I must tell you, it was exhausting. We met 3 of my college friends there and their respective 7 children for a fun-filled outing. It was fun filled for the kids anyway, but just dizzying for us. I had never been to this museum before and I'll tell ya, I'm not in a hurry to return. The rooms are all open to each other and open to the entryway, which results in children having way too easy access to escape. My head was spinning from trying to keep an eye on 9 children running in different directions among 400 children running in different directions. To top it off there were about 6 camp programs there, as I surmised from the different colored tee-shirts I counted. I knew it was going to be a madhouse, I expected a big crowd, but this was ridiculous. One of my friends had the unfortunate foresight to dress her son in a light blue tee-shirt, exactly the same shade as the 42 campers from "Camp Very Loud & Obnoxious." I expected him to end up on their bus headed back to Southie before the day was through.

Alas, we persevered through the day and the kids all had a blast playing with bubbles, riding on the plane that Buster flies, styling hair at the salon, and using a fake jackhammer in the construction zone. My 2 were especially fond of this GIANT climbing contraption in the middle that you snaked your way up through 3 stories while trying to not hit a dead end. I could see them climbing in there, but I couldn't get to them which made me a little uncomfortable. I kept telling Jack "stay with your sister, stay with your sister" which he did, mostly. Except when he didn't and left her far behind. By the end of the day my head hurt and my throat hurt. I think I basically just repeated these same sayings over and over throughout the day in a loop, "stay together" "don't run off" "keep up" "let's go" "no running in the bubble room" "let's try to pee". I was sick of hearing my own voice! At one point Jack was being obnoxious and I had to give him a time out for not listening. I pointed to a green wooden chair and told him to sit down, except when he did it started to play music and make weird sounds. I tried not to laugh but that was just too funny, so there went that time-out. Supernanny would so not be impressed.

For Jack & Abbey the best part of the day had to be taking the train in (or as we natives call it, the "T"). I braved this part of the adventure alone, even though I NEVER go into Boston and have no clue what I am doing. We drove an hour to a station and after being instructed to park strangely up on the curb on the on-ramp to the garage (don't ask) we found our way inside. I had no clue how to put money onto a Charlie Card (?) and had to ask a woman next to me to do it for me. After putting in my $20 it spit out my $16 in change in coins. I thought they were T-tokens of some kind and was mightily pissed, I wanted real money dammit. When I got home though my husband informed me that a) I was not so bright and b) it was real money, each coin was a dollar. Oh yeah, I knew that all along. Once we were through the turnstile though we were good all the way into the city, and once we finally found our Brockton friends we were even better. Who knew South Station had different exits depending on which line you were coming in on. Red, green, blue, can't all the colors just get along?

All in all it was a successful day, measuring success by the fact that we all came home alive and uninjured.