Hi! You should know that as I write this, I am having a romantic evening with myself. It's not as kinky as it sounds. Mr. C went camping and decided to take PG at the last minute, and 9 has been in Sacramento learning the wily ways of our state legislature. This has left me with 2 littles, which I thought would be a breeze. Turns out it was not the cake walk I had anticipated. No sir. That 5 year old of mine? He's a chatty dude. Like, he never stops talking. It's mentally exhausting. Plus, he was sick for the first day and a half. And here's something I thought I'd never complain about- the 3 year old is overly affectionate. After explaining for the 15th time that "it's not hugging if it hurts", and "my body is not a jungle gym for you to climb on", I feel as if I may lash out viciously at anyone who dares approach me from behind.
That is why tonight, after I put the kids to bed, I lit candles, dimmed lights, poured a glass of wine, and now, here I sit: me, the laptop, and peaceful quiet.
By the way, it just occurred to me that 10 years ago, I would've labeled exactly what I just described as "another depressing Friday night at home". The irony. It's not lost on me.
Anyway, this is the season when Mr. C is gone a lot, and in my years of being home with the kids, I have learned that on weekends such as these, it is best to plan, plan, plan. Fill those days up with activities and friends and party, party, party because otherwise you run the risk of letting the children turn you into a Candyland playing, Nick Jr. watching zombie. That is why I decided to take them on Saturday to the Children's Discovery Museum.
We have a great Discovery Museum out here. The kids love it, and I was excited to see a new wing that had opened up a few months ago. I had heard that it was geared towards older kids, but as we walked into it, I could see that there was plenty of interesting stuff for us to do. We spent a full hour in the first room, which contained a lie detector and a safe-cracking activity. Here I learned that my kids are smooth liars and have potential in the criminal arts (and also made me wonder if the exhibit itself wasn't designed by a criminal).
Then we walked into the second room and there it was. A sizable race track and a station for building your own motorized race car.
Uh oh.
I need to tell you something about myself. I am a right brained person. I am also pretty much a girly girl. This means that I don't usually possess a natural and logical understanding of how things work. In fact, I don't care how things work, as long as they do work. If they happen to be pretty too, then that's all the better. Building cars= not pretty, therefore it's not something in my realm of interest OR understanding. Sure, yes, there were a few years in the mid-90's when I tried to be interested in cars, but that was only because I was dating a .....gear head? Grease monkey? I don't even know the right lingo. What I do know however, is that from that relationship I acquired the lifetime knowledge of being able to tell the difference between a big block and small block engine. I have no idea what these engines are capable of, or what their differences are beyond their looks, but by God, lift the hood of any hot rod, and I can tell you if it's a big or small block engine. And that knowledge my friends, I will hang on to for the rest of my life, because it is the extent of any and all knowledge that I possess about car engines, period.
Unfortunately, on this day in the museum, the teeny tiny motors that were sitting in the bin of the assembling station didn't resemble either a big block nor a small block engine, so any hope of my being saved by my pathetic pool of background knowledge was lost. Also my excited 5 year old informed me that he didn't only want to build a race car, he wanted to build the fastest race car there. The pressure was on.
So I sat down with the kids at the building station. I looked at the little bins of materials that were available. They were labeled with parts like "wheel locks", "clamps", "rods", "gears", "pistons", and various other vocabulary that made my brain shut down in protest.
Then I looked at the laminated mat of instructions- only 24 little steps. I gave myself a little pep talk about how I've built LEGO sets with more steps. I got this, I thought to myself.
And so I started.
Then I messed up, so I restarted.
Then I messed up again, and I restarted once more, this time with little beads of sweat forming on my brow.
While I was struggling with building that one car, a happy, loud, boisterous family came in and the dad swiftly built two cars for his kids while his wife sat back and watched with what I personally thought was just a bit too much of a smug expression.
(It's possible I was just projecting my insecurities at that point.)
The whole time, my children sat there patiently watching me while I tried very hard not to curse.
You know that feeling when you're trying to do something, and it's taking too long, and the longer it takes, the more you start to panic and the worse you get at whatever it is you're doing?
That was happening to me. And by the way, there was a museum docent sitting not even 5 yards from me. I know for a fact that they are placed around the museum to be of help when they see people who need it, yet I'm pretty sure that she made a conscious decision to not see me. She just sat there picking at her cuticles the whole time.
See? There she is.
I hate her.
Anyway, I finally FINALLY completed all the steps. We took the race car over to the track and set it down where, much to J's disappointment and no surprise to me, it didn't work. So I heaved a great sigh, hoping that the kids would say something like "That's okay mom. Let's just do something else.", but of course, they didn't. J said, "What's wrong with it?" And I said, "I don't know." So I pretended to tinker around with it some more, like I had any kind of idea of what I was doing. And they waited and waited. I couldn't believe how patient they were being. (These were not the same kids who wake me up at 6:30 and ask at 6:35 when they're going to have breakfast.)
Finally, we walked it over to the track again.
And this is the part of the story where you'd think I could end with a statement about never giving up, and how patience will always see you through. Maybe you're thinking that the car will finally work and I'll be a hero in my children's eyes. Or, perhaps it's in your mind that the art docent would have finally gotten off her butt to lend a helping hand.
You'd be wrong on all accounts.
The car still didn't work. So I turned to the kids and I said "Guys. Here's the thing. We can either stay here and wait for mommy to fix this, which may take a really, really long time. OR we can get out of here and go to Red Robin for lunch." To which Roo replied, "Red Robin!"
J said "Well, mom." (By the way, he really talks like this- like a lawyer presenting his case) "You're giving me a hard choice, because I really want to see our car work. But you're taking a long time and I'm getting really, REALLY hungry."
I said nothing and continued to look at him until he heaved his own sigh and said, "Red Robin."
Ladies and Gentlemen, what I present to you tonight is not a lesson about patience, perseverance, gender roles, or even hope. No. This is a lesson about accepting the limits of your loved ones. My children gracefully accepted that their mother is useless when it comes to mechanical things, much in the same way that I accepted that the teenage art docent was determined to be a completely useless lump of living furniture. Tough lesson, but one that is handy in life.
And it turns out that it was nothing a burger and milkshake couldn't make better.
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