Travels With Children

This is a post about how things go when you have small children. Just precisely this way. I'm letting you know so you'll be prepared.

First of all, Soren, Sigrid and I went to visit our friends Ian and Renee (4-year-old and mom of 4-year-old, respectively). Sigrid napped for a while out in the car (in the driveway, far removed from the road, visible from the window, plus it was National Kidnappers Take the Day Off Day); Soren and Ian occasionally fought but mostly played, as they do; and Renee and I took on the kind of parenting responsibility that we usually adopt in this kind of situation, by which I mean we played Scrabble and told the boys to work out their own disagreements and popped up every few minutes to look out the window and make sure Sigrid was still a) in the car b) sleeping.

Eventually, I had taken a commanding enough lead in Scrabble that Renee wanted to quit, Sigrid had woken up and eaten trace amounts of lunch, Soren had refused lunch, and the boys had started doing more fighting than playing. We then decided it was time to go to an awesome indoor gym for little kids, about 20 minutes away, so the young ones could jump around on large foam things. We checked the gym's web site to make sure they were open, crammed all three car seats in the back of my car, and set off! Merrily!

Shortly thereafter began the screaming. It is not for me to speak of the screaming of the child of another, plus Ian wasn't doing that much of it anyway, so I will speak only of the screaming of my own progeny. There was a lot of screaming, mainly regarding the hunger one can only experience when one has refused to eat lunch. There was also the wordless rage and/or sadness of one who has spent too much time in the car already, or who has eaten only trace amounts of lunch, or who the hell knows because she's only one and can't talk yet. The back seat was a vortex of screaming.

I started playing a Beatles CD to try to distract Soren from screaming. What happened instead was that he screamed a bit, heard what was playing, and then started screaming about how he wanted me to start the song over again because he'd missed the beginning of the song because he'd been screaming.

Renee and I kept our cool. The promise of kids jumping on foam gym equipment stuff was our prize, and we kept our eyes on it.

And finally! We arrived! At the gym! We piled out of the car and ran to the door! And read the sign! Which said, "Closed for the day! See you soon!"

Moms throw tantrums, too, as it turns out. There's less screaming, but just as much pouting, and a lot more brainstorming regarding composition of angry emails to the proprietor of the gym.

Quick thinker that she is, Renee decided we should go to the Kettle Pond Nature Center, which has a bunch of fun stuff for kids to do, and which is also free, so that's a bonus. Perhaps there was less screaming on this leg of the trip, or perhaps I have repressed it. Either way, we arrived, and it was open, and there was fun stuff for kids to do. We colored a bit, and then Soren, Ian, and I did some puzzles while Sigrid and Renee kept coloring. At one point, I thought I smelled a suspicious smell, but discreet butt-sniffing failed to reveal any of our kids as a source; Renee said the one other kid who was also coloring seemed to have had beans for lunch, and we left it at that.

We then moved on to a different room, which featured displays of various local flora and fauna and an aquarium full of frogs and tadpoles. Soren and Ian were very interested in the frogs, and both stood up on a little step-stool to watch them; Renee and I started going through drawers and found fun things to play with, like some little devices that seemed to serve as bird song quizzes. I bragged enough about Scrabble earlier, so I don't think I need to talk about how hard I rocked the bird song quiz. Common Nighthawk BOOYAH.

Then Soren came over and asked, very innocently, "Why is there poop on this stool?" Ignoring the "stool/stool" pun potential, I looked at the step-stool in question and was very disappointed to find that there was, in fact, a little turd sitting neatly on the top step.

Whereupon began the process of figuring out who left stool on the stool: a delicate dance comprising gentle accusations; leading suggestions; point-blank interrogation; none-too-subtle smelling of the butt region; a voyage to the restroom to perform a thorough hand-washing, since he claimed to have touched the poo; and, at last, a visual inspection. Results: Soren was clean, and I felt bad for thinking it was him. On the other hand, I couldn't exactly go around accusing other people's children of pooping on the furniture.

Renee also determined that it wasn't her kid, so we were left with the unsavory task of telling the nature center docent about the poop which was not the fault of either of our children and must have been left by the other kid who had since departed. I offered the docent a handful of paper towels and gave her a look which clearly said Sorry to make you do this, but there's no way I, a mere visitor, am cleaning up some stranger's poo. We approached the stool. And the stool. She reached down with the paper towels. Picked up the turd. And laughed.

"It's scat," she said.

I then gave her a look which clearly said Well -- yeah, I guess, although they don't usually call it that unless it's animal doodie, and what's so funny anyway, and wait, did an animal really come in here and do its business? When? Huh?

"It's a model of animal scat. To help with identification. There are a bunch of different ones - we keep them in the drawers over there."

A fake piece of animal poop. Very realistic, I must add. We laughed, and took our leave.

It would be great to end the story with a hearty laugh about plastic muskrat scat, and singing of Beatles songs all the way home, but all the kids remembered they were hungry as soon as they got in the car, and OH GOD. THE SCREAMING.