Best of Intentions

I woke up today feeling inspired to stimulate Ava's growing brain. At the end of the day, I'm solely responsible for what she sees and hears so why not fill those senses with something educational...? I embraced my inner-mommy-of-the-year-wannabe and got her ready so we could go to the DuPage Children's Museum in Naperville (a short 20 minute drive).

On the way there, I heard endlessly about "train trakth" and how she wanted to go over them... and see them... and play with them. Ignorantly, I promised her that we would play with lots of "train trakth" at the museum.

We pulled up and I was pleasantly surprised with all the great parking that was available. We got out and walked to the door. She was soooo excited.

I was excited, too... patting myself on the back for dragging us all that way for a fun little morning! Yep, I was very excited... until I pulled on the VERY LOCKED door.

What the...?? Why won't this door open? Are we at the wrong entrance?!

That's about when I saw the sign: MUSEUM CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE

FML.

As I tried to explain to my 2 year-old daughter that they were closed, a temper tantrum like I've never seen ensued. She ran from me when I tried dragging her back to the car, which really angered me; how many times do you have to tell your kid (1) not to run from you... and (2) especially not while in a parking lot that cars are driving through. Then I became that Mom... the one who grabs her kid by the arm and screams "No! Danger!!"... Ava went limp and was screaming--you get the picture. It was a real ______ treat.

I finally got her into the car but the damage had been done. She was pissed.

 

The entire drive back, she was screaming about "train trakth"... I'm sure if she could explain her feelings of anger and disappointment they would have come out in some sort of phrase similar to "You suck Mom. I really hate you right now. All I wanted to do was see some damn train trakth. Thanks for nothing. Worst Mommy ever."

Onto Plan B.

I tried to think of something else we could do and--BAM! It hit me!! We would instead go to Glazed Expressions so she could paint some pottery. She'd like that, right?! So I started congratulating myself and quickly diverted her attention from the God damn "train trakth" to good old fashioned painting. The crying soon stopped. Praise Jesus.

We pulled up to the place and went to the door.

The. F-ing. Door. Will. Not. Open. WTF is wrong with the world today??!!

The sign on the door says, "We will be opening today at 3:30" which was conveniently located next to their "Weekly Hours" sign that says they normally open at 10:00. I looked at my watch-- it was 10:02.

FML. Again.

So I looked around, desperate not to fail her 3x in 20 minutes. Lucky for me (and not my wallet) there was a toy store on the corner. Off we went. Inside, she played with some trains for about 15 minutes before finding a "Neigh" (little horse) that she wanted. I bought the little $7 piece of junk and we were on our way, smiles on both of our faces.

I decided we would go home for lunch because I didn't want to chance that McDonald's, Target or some other "mother ship" was also CLOSED for the day, since that seemed to be the common theme of the day.

What's that saying... "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"... ? Sounds about like my morning.

Mom of the year? Definitely not. But I do deserve an A for effort.