Monday, May 18, 2009

The Long Hot Weekend

Recipe for a Long Weekend:

Take three children (mix ages liberally)
Make it damn hot all weekend (90 degrees)
Outnumber adults 3 to 1
Deny alcohol consumption
Day One: An afternoon on the beach, where sand has the ability to fill diapers and baby's mouths faster than you'd think.
Step One: Slather the children with sunscreen
Step Two: Load the car with the essentials (beach towels, diaper bag, drinks, snacks, hats, sweaters in case of fog, stroller, extra clothes, sunglasses, Valium, whoops I mean water and wet ones)
Step Three: Arrive at beach, unload all that essential crap, and get children and stroller down to the sand in one piece:
Aren't they sweet looking in this photo? DON'T BE FOOLED.




After 3 hours of wrangling sand from the baby's grasp, yelling at the older ones to get back on the shore, and turning around to find more sand in the baby's hands...we brushed off as much sand as we could in a public (i.e. NASTY) restroom and headed to a LONG AND ARDUOUS dinner at a local diner (it lasted at least 3 hours, I am sure of it). After the requisite milkshakes, hot dogs and ice cream (aka...Auntie's paying), it was time for a drop off at the local orphanage..oops, I mean time to load up and head home.

The four of us, 3 bags of assorted "essential" crap and approximately 4 pounds of sand headed inside for baths, movies and bed.

The baby figured out how to climb this step and get back down in no time at all:
She was quite impressed with herself. I was impressed at the amount of sand she managed to smuggle home in her diaper. And so to bath time:

There are no photos of the older kids in the bath, as they are smart enough now to post "please, no photos" on the door now.

The kids, now hardcore Charlie Chaplin fans, insisted on watching more of him, so it was Modern Times for the movie, sleeping bags for the floor, and a Valium for Auntie. Oops, I mean a glass of water.

The baby slept with me, and I don't understand why an 18 inch long infant requires the entire bed for her use. She slept heavily, spread out like a swastika (see "The Women" for that reference), while I clung to the very edge of the bed, clinging to side rail out of fear of falling and, horrors of all horrors, waking her up.
Then dawn came and it started all over again.
Day Two:The SF Zoo for the day.
Step One: Slather children with sunscreen
Step Two: Load the car with the "essentials" (stroller, diapers, baby food, sweaters, extra baby clothes, drinks, snacks, cameras, cash, pacifiers, sunglasses, wet ones, more cash, Dr Pepper, toys in case the zoo bores the crap out of the baby, more cash)
Step Three: Potty everyone and load up
Step Four: Arrive at zoo and unpack all the essentials; make everything fit into stroller basket.
Step Five: Get into the zoo

So, the steps above took us over an hour. Took us a mere five minutes in the zoo to lose the babies sunglasses. Did I mention it was 90 degrees in SF on Sunday? Well, it was.

We saw lots of animals:
The rare and elusive Taranaboy:


Front view:
The rare and elusive Jennalope:
The rare and elusive LionBoy:
The rare and elusive ButterGiggle (may also be categorized as a GiggleFly)
We took some great photos here and there:

Of course, we had to do the obvious touristy things:
And the carousal (at $2 a kid!!):
And lastly, a couple of cool images:Admission to the zoo: $41
1 churro and 1 pretzel: $10
Souvenirs: $67
1 Corn dog and Garlic Fries, with 2 drinks: $19
Time spent with nieces and nephews: Priceless.
OK, that last line is actually not true. I can put a price on that. My sanity, for instance.

1 comment:

The Swamp Fox said...

Geez, what a weekend! My biggest challenge was giving the rosemary bush a haircut.