Well, the kids love Great Wolf Lodge at least. Last week, coincidentally just after ND's last regular season game, Sean turned off the cable and phone. We'd been talking about it for ages and finally did it. Then to soften the blow to the kids, we told them that the money we were saving could be used to go to the Great Wolf Lodge for a night. It was also a rare weekend without Sean working a shift so we figured we'd get out of town and do some family stuff. Kids were thrilled and they are getting old enough that it's not a total nightmare for us anymore. I just stood there watching Emily go down the little slide "one more time?" about 232 times. Sean kept tabs on Patrick getting some good exercise up and down the big slides.
I did learn some lessons from this trip though.... first and foremost, bring swim suits. Yes, somehow in the chaos I forgot to specifically tell the girls to pack those. In the end it was fine because I remembered that their suits from this summer were trashed and tacky. So we hit the gift shop there and cobbled together something for them to wear. Megan no longer fits in kid suits but she wasn't comfortable in the adult size suit by itself so we ended up with a boy's rash guard and surf shorts over it. Merry Christmas Megan! I should have gotten myself a better coverup because I spent too much time awkwardly navigating between our room and the water park by myself and I just kept thinking I was never coming back.
We also went down to the Plaza at night to see the lights and get dinner. Yes, we're naive. Trying to take six of us out to dinner on a Saturday night at the Plaza... at least a 2 hour wait everywhere. Kids were crabby and starving so we gave up and went to Ingredient, which is a fine place, but not what I had in mind. It is all about food for me of course. At least the weather was great though so it was nice walking around. The kids were not impressed with the lights down there though. Merely outlining the buildings in lights is not enough for them... they need inflatable snowglobes, Santas, and polar bears to even get them to comment. So in that department Manhattan definitely wins.
Emily grew tired of the water park the next morning so I took her shopping with me to get some stuff for new cousin Erin and she ended up getting many dresses for herself. Merry Christmas Emily! Then Ellie can get them and then Erin eventually....
Anyway, the kids have adjusted to not having their precious TV shows. I was so sick of the constant begging for more shows and the toys that are advertised on them. We're still letting them watch DVDs and we told the girls they can watch the new episodes of Disney shows online so they aren't going to be out of the pop culture loop. But, the screen time has gone down significantly and I do not miss the noise. Now if we could just do something educational or productive with their spare time...
I went to see the Leahy Family Christmas Show at the McCain this week and they featured some of their kids, ages 5-10. As I was watching this darling 5 year old girl play the fiddle and do some sort of tap dancing thing with her older cousins, I couldn't help but wonder if Patrick could do anything as well if he hadn't spent so much time watching TV over the past 5 years... Hmm, probably not, we don't seem to carry that musical talent gene. Megan and Anna were practicing their piano for the recital this weekend and as Anna was singing along to Megan playing (this won't happen at the recital, don't worry!) they sounded very similar to the stepsisters on Cinderella that we just watched. They will hate me later for posting this, but it was hilarious and Sean tried to get some video but they stopped when they saw him. Megan is pretty good at piano but Anna only agreed to continue lessons so she could pet the teacher's dog when it was Megan's turn for her lesson.
Oh but the McCain show was interesting... folk style, 8 adult siblings from Canada who sing, dance and play instruments. And then they trotted out their kids whom I enjoyed much more. When it was just the adults I had to agree with Heather when she said it seemed like a Saturday Night Live skit, rather cheesy and awkward at times. Sing-along? Nope. We were the only ones snickering I think so we did it discreetly. Don't get me wrong, these people were very talented, just not my style. I spent most the time wondering about their family dynamics, comparing them to the Keenan generation above Sean with 9 kids... Oh and they have three other siblings who aren't in the band although they made it sound like they rotate in and out and joked that they weren't as good as the rest. (My theory is that one of them is actually a very famous musician on his own and they hate admitting it to people....) There was at least one on stage who didn't seem that into it. Heather guessed that "paying the bills, paying the bills" was the motivation there. Oh and a lot of the songs were similar, Irish style reels I think they call them, and they last for hours if not weeks. Yeah, I don't know how many nights I could do in pubs in Ireland although I know Pops, Nana and Bridget put their time in the past couple years and survived. Mostly it is just hard for me to sit in one place for that long and not be able to talk openly or eat. That's how I multi-task, adding in eating and talking.
I have been trying to be productive lately, hence the lack of blog posts. Getting ready for Christmas, actually cleaning the house, and taking the kids to the park on the days when it is nice. Winter is coming soon, have to take advantage... but nothing wears them out like a water park so I'm sure we'll end up there again sooner than I want!
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