Happy New Year!!
We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! We celebrated 8 crazy nights of Chanukah, Christmas and New Year’s! Now I am planning my son’s 7th birthday party! No break for mama but that isn’t new!!
Every year on New Year’s Eve we go to our friends house! It is a long standing tradition. Last year Seth wanted to take the kids to first night downtown and I said no. This year he asked again and I figured I should be a nice wife and head downtown to the madness (I mean fun festivities).
The kids and Seth are excited to go on a new New Year’s Eve adventure! It is freezing out and I hold my baby Lillie close to my body and run quickly to the building from the parking lot! We have arrived! Let the crazy begin!
We head into a room with characters and lines to take pictures with all of the different characters. Of course my kids want to wait in the lines and Max is upset he can’t seem to find Iron Man!
We take the pictures and head to get their faces painted! “Forget it,” the line is crazy and I drag them away to the dance room! Ella’s favorite song from the movie Frozen is playing and the kids boogie and dance through blowing bubbles!
Max now wants to wait in line for the fitness challenges but I just don’t have the patience for long lines! I drag Max into the toddler room and he humors me and plays with Ella and Lillie for a while.
We decide to head upstairs. The elevator opens and there it is: rides, bounce houses, food and tons and tons of people! I bring my family over to the stage so I can enjoy watching all of the Irish dancers. The kids are hungry of course so we get in the food line. Seth figures they can’t screw up pizza (wrong) so orders pizza for him and Ella. They are out of every chicken dish I ask for and Seth is now upset that there is nothing for me to eat (I am sticking to healthy food)! We sit down to eat and Seth quickly discovers the pizza is gross and soggy! Back he goes to get chicken fingers for the crew. Seth has also found our Rabbi who is there with his wife and kids and a group of friends. We weren’t the only fools (i mean good parents) to head downtown to this chaos!
The kids are now screaming for bounce houses. Lillie our walking toddler doesn’t want to sit in the stroller or be carried so I am chasing her through the building. Lillie is obsessed with the bounce houses and keeps trying to climb in them. There is no way in hell that I am going in a bounce house so I keep asking my husband to please go bounce with Lillie and take her down all the slides. Lillie doesn’t understand what it means to take turns so she keeps having a fit.
We come to an obstacle course so I kindly suggest they all go in! Not so kind of me! Max runs through and flies down the slide to my feet. “Max, where is Ella? Please tell me she is with daddy?” I wait and wait and wait and more and more people come out who are not Seth, ella and Lillie so I start to worry. Finally I see Seth’s face and it is not happy! Ella comes sliding down the slide and then Seth climbs up with Lillie and slides down. He hands me Lillie and then goes to dive back in yelling that he dropped something! He comes back out happy to have found his phone but not so happy with me for sending him into the obstacle course. Seth explains to me that he had to hold Ella and Lillie while ducking and climbing through ropes. He points to the inside of the obstacle course to show me what I sent him into! Oops, sorry honey!
Max is begging over and over to climb the rock wall where the line barely moves! I distract Max with the pogo stick jumper who is jumping over people as I continue to chase Lillie! Seth is seeing the signs! I am sweating, overstimulated and exhausted. We start to drag the kids to the elevator after allowing one more bounce madness I mean bounce house!
Before we can leave of course Lillie needs her diaper changed and everyone needs to go to the bathroom! You just start to learn as a parent that things that used to take you two minutes now takes about 15 minutes – on a good day!
Time to bundle up and walk through the cold to the car! Good times!!
We get home and put Ella and Lillie to bed! Max is determined to stay up so Seth, Max and I plop on the couch to get ready for the ball to drop. Max is trying so hard to keep his eyes open. By 11:30 Max is out! The ball is about to drop and I yell to Max and Seth shakes him but Max is out cold! We give up and Seth carries Max upstairs!
The next morning Max yells at us that he fell asleep! We explain our efforts to wake him but Max is in tears! Good times! Happy New Year everyone!!
