Argh! Or Calling the Cops On My Four Year Old

STOMP! made an appearance at The Children's Museum today, and since our year pass was about to expire it seemed like a good time to make one last trip. These things always seem like a good idea in theory. Upon arrival we saw FIVE full size school buses. Yes, FIVE. And a news van. Hoo Boy.

Well, we went inside and got ourselves settled for the show. It turns out our bit of carpet was vacant for a reason; the sun was particularly blinding in that location. Oh well. I figured that fact fit in with the five full sized school buses out front. The Boy was so excited to see STOMP! since I'd been showing him YouTube clips. While we were discussing this, Zsa Zsa managed to sneak off. Museum staff were alerted of her disappearance and after a few minutes we located her, 5 feet from where I'd been sitting. Obviously she wasn't there the whole time but I was glad to have her back, at any rate, regardless of where she'd been.

The kids and I had a repeat of the conversation in the car on the drive over; namely if you can't see Mom, Mom can't see you and THAT IS NOT OK. Stay where you can see Mom or when you are found, we will all leave immediately! If only I'd left with them after that mini-disappearance. It was but a foreshadowing of things to come. (dum dum DUMMMM!)

After the show (which kind of sucked, by the way. Even the STOMP! guy said so...) we went upstairs to play. AGAIN I said, "if you'd like to leave this room, come tell Mommy first!" The kids did pretty well at first, but when it was time to move to a different exhibit, The Boy said he'd like to go to the bathroom. Well, that's just fine, let me get your sister and we'll go. By the time I got her collected, The Boy was no where in site. I figured he REALLY had to go and had high tailed it to the restroom so Zsa and I made our (laborious) way there. No Boy. Hmmm. Well I'm like 40 million months pregnant and I was standing IN the restroom so it's not like I could pass up the opportunity and Zsa, regardless of the fact that she's back in diapers, likes using the mini potty and sink so she needed to go, too. She also felt the need to strip from the waist down, including her socks so it took a while to get her put back together. The Boy was still missing.

Zsa and I combed the third floor looking for my missing spawn. We alerted museum staff. Nothing. More nothing. On a hunch I took Zsa and we looked through every exhibit on all three floors. We checked back in with museum staff. Nothing. I walked the entire museum AGAIN. More nothing. At this point it had been 30 full minutes since I'd seen him last.

Now, we go to the Children's Museum almost weekly. My kids are VERY comfortable with that building and go missing regularly, but I'm usually able to locate them within two or three minutes, and they have NEVER strayed from the floor on which I first lost sight of them. They have their favorite exhibits and it's easy to find them. Until today.

When we reached the 30 minute mark I told the employee in charge of the search that it was time to call the police. I'm not an alarmist when it comes to my missing children. I know they are usually playing somewhere completely oblivious to my searching for them. But half an hour in a rapidly emptying museum? That was pushing it, even for me. The employee said that I could talk to his supervisor about calling in extra help. My response to that?
"You can call whomever you like to talk it over, I'm calling the police NOW. It's been 30 minutes." I had my finger hoovering over the second 1 in 9-1-1 when his radio crackled and the freaking gift shop reported having found my son.

He was THREE ever loving stories away from where he'd first disappeared. In the year we've been attending the museum, we have NEVER EVEN ENTERED the gift shop. That's a can of over-priced worms I haven't felt the need to open.

You might imagine that I felt all kinds of relieved to have found my son but the only emotion I've felt since the whole thing started is anger. I'm so MAD at my kids. "Stay where you can see Mom" is simple. It's direct. There's not a lot of ambiguity with that statement. Both kids are totally capable of following it. Both kids completely ignored me and made me waddle all over this freaking museum we only go to because I'm trying to be a good mom. I have a pair of THE most ungrateful children on planet earth and I'm really REALLY sick of being their mother. How did I end up being totally taken for granted by my kids?

Anyway, it turns out The Boy had taken the elevator to the first floor to use the bathroom we normally use on our way in, and then had decided to stay down there and browse the gift shop without his mother. I am glad we didn't have to call the cops and issue an Amber Alert, but Sheez Louise. If I don't have an extra three gray hairs from this experience, it's not because my kids didn't try.

Cars 2 Event

We heard Tempe Marketplace was hosting an event, for Cars 2: Agents On A Mission.
Since one of The Boy's fondest wishes in life is to drive Lightening McQueen, we piled our family plus a little girl I was watching into our teeny car and drove across town to "see" Lightening and Mater.

When we got there, we saw a line. While The Hubs stood in the line, the kids and I checked out what it was about. We didn't want to stand in line if it was just for bathrooms. :D
We found out you had to make your way through this line just to get inside. Nobody knew for sure what was in there, once you got inside, but they were all willing to stand in the line for it. Idiot Morons. (I can say that, because we did it, too.)
The other bit of info I gleaned was that the wait was about 2 hours. Yes. 2 hours. I did mention I forgot to put my brain in that morning, right? Luckily, I did not forget to bring sun screen and water.
We stood in this line, taking turns chasing kids and making potty stops. At one point, I even left the line to get some dinner for the starving babies. We are SUCH suckers. Really. I can not, in any way, express with the written word the inaneness of this event.
FINALLY we made it to the front of the line, right before the kid with the bloody nose. Oh, it was a special, special time.
Then my kids collected a poster, a key chain, a coloring page, and had their pictures "professionally" taken in front of each of the three cars.

Yep. That's going to make a great Christmas card. 

Am I ever, as in ever EVER going to put myself through this again? 

NO. 

I may send The Hubs, though. 

PS I had better win that d@m car.

Movie Reviews: Gnomeo and Juliet

Because this movie is already out on video, I'm just going to give you the lowdown: Red Box it if you must.

The story has been done to death. Putting it in the context of Garden Gnomes did not, in any way, take away the stench of overdone-ness. It also wasn't worth the extra money for 3D.
The only positive thing I have to say about this movie is, at least the 3D didn't make me sick.

The war between the owners of the two gardens was by far the most entertaining part of the entire thing. Catching the Shakespeare references also helped pass the time.

My friend and I took two ten-year-olds, two four-year-olds, a two year-old and a one-year-old to this movie.

The older kids sat through it, but didn't have much to say on the way home. My four-year-old liked it, because the pictures moved and talked! (He's easily entertained. Also, he likes Dora and Diego so maybe his tastes aren't the most discerning.) The other four-year-old was all over the place, but that's just kinda her general reaction to the world at large.
The two-year-old sat through it fine, and the baby had the most honest opinion: she kept trying to get up and leave.

Kidlette Activities: Bean and Noodle Box

Have you ever just wanted a few minutes to yourself, but you can't send the kids out for whatever reason, and you'd rather not turn on the TV? I have. Like, at LEAST once a month.

Enter the Bean and Noodle Box. 

This nifty creation is yet another idea I copied off my good friend, Whitney. She's super awesome at being a mom, so I HAVE to copy her, since I'm not what anyone would call a "natural" mother. Totally making it up as I go along. Ferills.

So here's what you need.

2 minutes
a sturdy large-ish container with a lid that snaps on (to keep out the buggies)
beans
noodles
a large sheet

How it works: Dump the beans and noodles in the container. Spread out the sheet. Place container on the sheet and let the kids get out their kitchen toys. I also have some left over frosting containers and a kitchen funnel they love to play with. The only rule is, the beans and noodles must stay on the sheet, which makes cleanup a breeze! It's an in-door sandbox with more texture for exploration and easier clean up.  Win-Win.

Once they start playing, you have at least 30 minutes of peace and quiet, and if your kids are as easily entertained as mine, up to 90 minutes of blogging time. :D