Mother's Day at our house usually consists of breakfast in bed, handmade cards, gifts purchased with Dad the day before, church, and me taking the rest of the day off of making lunch or dinner. I nap, I read the newspaper...basically veg.
This year started the same with cinnamon rolls, oranges eggs and toast--YUM, however, it ended really
really different. And I'm glad.
The L-iL mentioned a couple of days ago that he was thinking of inviting friends over for a barbecue today. That meant smoking, beer and swearing--not exactly the best atmosphere for my children to be in, if you know what I mean. So I've been brainstorming Things To Do With The Children For Hours On End That Won't Drive Me Batty for a couple of days. Oh and PS--Dad's in school. So for Mother's Day I get to be a Park Mom (I am not, and have about a 10-minute park tolerance) AND a Single Mom in the same day.
Yay.
*groan*
I looked at zoos, aquariums, kids museums, etc, and no matter what I looked at, admission alone would cost over $50. No thanks. I decided on the
Ballard Locks, a localish attraction that I'd been to on a 'field trip' with friends years ago. I distinctly remembered a few things about it: boats, green grassy areas, a fish ladder and NO ADMISSION.
So I packed a picnic, some sports equipment, umbrellas for the chancy weather, a blanket & tarp for damp ground, a few extra pairs of bottoms for Cora & we were off!
I really had no expectations, but it ended up to be a GREAT day! To start with, I went to pay for parking and it was a weekend!!! No parking fees on weekends!!! Yay!!!!
On the non-list of things to do (can you believe it? I didn't even have a list!!!) but what we ended up doing anyway because it just worked out that way:
1--Bathrooms (Cora's been potty trained for almost 2 months now. 'nuf said.)
2--Backtrack to the ones that we passed in the gift shop because the ones by the locks were closed for cleaning.
3--Be alerted by the employee outside the bathroom that Lee was not, in fact, with us--he was continuing on his merry little way.
4--Send Abby & Alex to chase him down because he's too far to hear me holler at him.
5--Have The Discussion with Lee. Again.
6--Juggle mens/womens bathrooms with 4 children in a gift shop while keeping someone on guard at the backpack hanging on the stroller. Are we having fun yet?
6a--Be complimented by a complete stranger in the bathroom that Abby is a really great big sister/helper. She was right. Ab did GREAT
ALL DAY!!!! She was fabulous!
7--GET STARTED!!!!!
8--The thing that the kids were most looking forward to was the fish ladder. [The
locks are really fascinating things to watch. Lake Union & Lake Washington are at a higher elevation than the Puget Sound (which changes, as it's salt water), but boats come & go all the time between them, so the locks provide a way for boats to overcome a varying-height obstacle. How it works: boats come in from the Ship Canal (the lakes), putt into a long, skinny enclosure & the doors are closed behind them. The water is then drained out until it's the same level as the water in the Sound. The doors in front of them open and then motor away. Sailboats, yachts, barges, tugboats...whatever can fit, goes. Check out the site. It's pretty cool, and it has pics of the actual location--I didn't take many pictures of that. Just my kids. And yes, Lee's feet are completely off the ground. The kids' just crazy strong.]
Oh--the fish ladder. There's one of those, too, with a viewing room where you can go down into a room next to the canal & look through the glass to see the fish swimming up the fish ladder. Well, you can if it's the right time of year. We missed it by a couple of months either way, but there was one little fishy hanging out there. It sorta looked troutish to me, but who knows? So the kids learned more about fish eggs, development, etc.
9--Then we went to look at the boats coming & going. It sort of takes a while, but it's still cool to watch.
10--The walkway from the locks to the fish ladder is wet & misty from the water being shot out of the spillway (check out the pics of it on the website), and the kids were fascinated with the rainbows they could see in the mist. It was also a bit of a game to find the one harbor seal that was hanging out looking for food. In salmon season the area's full of sea lions glutting themselves on the salmon waiting their turn to figure out how to get into the lake. Pigs.
11--Tire of hearing how hungry the kids are, so hit the bathrooms on the way to the car, where the food is.
12--Lunch was light, so we treated ourselves to an early dinner. Tarp. Blanket. Subs, Pirate's Booty, Capri Sun & chocolate covered mini-donuts. The dinner of champions.
13--Play. Wiffle-ball baseball, roll down the hill, climb the trees. Just have a good time. I found one tree full of a particularly adorable breed of Apple-Cheeked Monkeys. Love it.
14--Go for a walk. The signs boast of a world-renowned botanical garden, but I have to say that it doesn't really hold a match to the one up the road from home. Oh well.
15--Be told by the park people that we don't climb the trees. Oops. I didn't let them climb the one with the fence around it, and this one was definitely not fenced!
16--Continue on our walk. Stop beneath a cherry-blossoming tree to enjoy the 'snow' as it drifts down. The ones around Abby are from the handful she just tossed up. And I love the petals stuck in Cora's curls.
17--Have mild panic attack when Cora announces, "Mom! Pee! Mom! Pee!"
18--Score her first successful peeing in the woods.
19--All around the inlet from the Puget Sound are high, grassy, terraced hills. Perfect for rolling! Roll and roll and roll some more!
20--At the bottom, Lee found some mussel shell fragments left by the seagulls. He kept some for his 'collection.' He had more, but there was water, and it was within throwing distance.... Cora found some mud that collected in her crocs. "Mom. Luck. Toes." So her crocs & socs came off. I guess her pants got a little wet too. *sigh*
21--Put pants back on the child.
22--Standing here we were right next to the large locks, which hadn't been used the whole time we were there. But we waited just a bit to watch a big tugboat with a little tugboat tied on like a dinghy pulling a LOOOOOOOONG trail of logs. What they were for I'm not sure, but it was cool to watch.
23-Bathrooms. Again.
24--Make our way back to the locks, over the walkway, to the other end of the other side because Alex wants to go throw rocks from a sandy area he can see. Nevermind that it's 6:30 on a school night. Whatever.
25--Go even further because...well...I have no idea why. But we did. We eventually were under a train trestle climbing on barnacle-covered rocks. Abby--bless her heart--commented that it was too bad that we didn't have a garbage bag, because there was some litter lying around.
26--Get back from the stroller that was so loaded down with bags, coats & hats that it looked like our homeless shopping cart, give it to the kids to tidy up a bit.
27--Try to convince the kids to come back. (The pic was actually taken from the base of the train trestle because I couldn't see them around the corner & I was wondering what the heck was taking so long!)
28--Enjoy the view of a train passing RIGHT ABOVE OUR HEADS!!!!! So cool. (Notice how teeny Lee and Abby are compared to the trestle & train.)
29--Head back.
30--Watch boys race. Then notice them stop for Lee to pout because Alex is winning. Rinse and repeat. Again and again.
31--Let Abby roll down the other terraced hillside just once.
32--Request her to fetch Cora because while Abby was coming down, she was making her way up. To the top. (Boys are far ahead of me, girls are behind. Thank Heaven that most of the crowds were gone. They were home putting their children to bed.)
33--Gather everyone back together and make our way back to the car, saying goodbye to our friend the harbor seal.
34--Let the kids walk the railroad tracks that run the length of the parking lot for the 4th time.
35--Wonder where Cora's shoe is.
36--Find it about 25' away, sitting on a railroad tie.
37--Thank Lee for returning it.
38--Change Cora's wet pants. "Pee. Tain. Tack. Pee. Tain. Tack." Hey--you can't really expect to go for over 5 hours without changing wet unders once, can you?
39--Finish Pirate's Booty on the way home while listening to the kids declare that "This is the best day ever" (Alex). "This is the most fun I've had all month!" (Abby), and that I'm "...the bestest Mom EVER!!!" (Lee).
40--Put things away, collecting the important stuff: Lee's collection, and the bits of love they gathered for me all day:
(Today in church the line from the childrens' song choked me up as I thought of all the flowers Lee has brought me lately: "Dear Mother, I give you my love with each flower...")
41--Be thankful for the four crazy monkeys that call me 'Mom.'
