Saturday, September 11, 2010

Chuck E Sleeze, good friends & remembering....

Today was a birthday party day! A 4th birthday party for our cutie-pie nephew, Denim, to be exact. Yes, 4 years old! A big boy now! Birthday party was held at Chuck E Cheese Sleeze. This is a special kind of torture for some. I will NEVER, ever, go back there again. Okay, I shouldnt say never, but seriously as of this moment, I will never go back. I am going to have to be brainwashed into thinking this place is cool before I can subject myself or kids to this again. Sorry Chuck E rat dude, but your place just isnt what it once was. It was, of course crowded (that is a given) and full of nastiness, RUDE people and a quarter, if not more, of the rides/games did not work right.

Upon entry into this crowded rat village, my first impressions were;

  • Children, small children, running loose with no adult supervision. Would be different if you could actually "see" your children running around and not have to worry about people being rude to them, them getting molested or God forbid, stolen. (To those who say, yeah but they have those kid checkpoints... yeah the one hubby walked right out of with Littlest Little at first... had he kept on walking, he could have just walked off with someone elses Little.) 

  • Some of the above mentioned children gave new meaning to the word stink. My gosh, if I could smell the dirty diapers 10 ft away, why couldnt their parents?

  • Middle Little needed a diaper change, took her into the restroom to use the changing station, with our diaper changing pad to avoid germs, and we had to practically step over a woman changing her baby boy on the floor, NOTHING under his little bum protecting him. Yes, you read that right. I so wanted to hold her face to the bathroom floor and make her lick the cold nasty tiles. I was so sad for that little boy.

  • Ahhh, and the rude adults that need classes on how to act in public with small children.
Thats just in the first ten minutes of being there, before we even got to the table. I wont even go into the rest of the time we were there. But you know, the kids love these places, so sacrifice our sanity we did. The tiny ear to ear grins make it better.

The birthday boy, Denim. Happy 4th Birthday handsome!

  




 



The smile makes it all worthwhile.




His first ride... he was checking it all out... much fun!





Our girl and her legwarmers. This Little has a thing for knee socks/legwarmers. If allowed access into the closet sock drawer, she will choose her own legwarmers/socks. Fashionista'.



She had me rolling... so funny to watch her get after it with the mallet, some serious business.




As she buckles her sealtbelt... a squeeky little voice says "Safety first!"
We always tell the Littles this.




At this point she was getting SO tired. Past her beauty sleep time... this was right before it happened..... yes, rat village turned into melt-down city.


Think she had more fun feeding coins to the machines than anything.


One gloriously happy Little enjoying the sugary highs of cake icing.




And one not so happy Little who was up past her beauty sleep time and had a major meltdown that cupcakes wouldnt even fix. Daddy says as he wipes her nose and streaming tears "You are supposed to leave this place happy, not sad."  ;-( 



It was time to go, time to leave this rat village and head back to our own casa and have a little rejuvinating rest before our playdate and good friend came for a visit.

Once home, first thing first, wash hands and little faces. Yes, rid them of the nastiness leftover... I would almost rather them dig in a trash receptacle in a park full of wine-os than go back there. Okay, not really, but you get the idea, the place was just gross. Once cleaned up, time for a cat-nap, no problem for either of the Littles, they were worn out.

Evening rolled around and our good friends Melissa and her daughter Hannah, showed up for a playdate. Melissa is one of those real friends they say you can actually count on one hand... a "true" friend. More like family. We met off of the internet many moons ago. We love her and her family, good people.

A nice relaxing evening full of big people talk and watching Littles play...


Beautiful little Hannah. I think all babies are miracles.... this one is an extra special miracle. It took momma and daddy a lot of time and work to get her here.  A precious little soul. Love her.







Cheesecake brownies and a couple glasses of sweet wine, made the evening even more delicious. (Thank you Melissa for the treats, you know how to treat a girl right! :-)




Once we said our goodbyes, it was time to get the pajama clad Littles snug in bed and enjoy some Mommy/Daddy quite time before saying goodnight to the day. Good times.

Edited to add: I realized after the day was over, that the date was 9/11. Then the remembrance and sadness hit. Thoughts of all the families affected by that tragic day, Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I think everyones world was affected in some way. I know mine was. I remember standing in front of the TV's breaking news with my jaw dropped in disbelief and being the first and pretty much only parent to rush to the elementary school that was on lock down that morning, to pick up our now oldest daughter. I remember being shocked that more parents did not pick up their children after the news recommending it due to terroristic threats that were being made. I was not about to sit at home and watch and wait to see what happened next without knowing Biggest Little was at least safe and sound with us. Watching it all unfold was horrendous, scary and disgusting. The world can be such an ugly place, and yet, over the next few years, once all the healing and rebuilding of lives began, you could start to see beauty again. So this day, we remember, we pray and we hope for all things good for the future.

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