Date Night with a 2 year old.

We've been dying to take the kids to the Children's Museum since my friend mentioned it to me...oh, a year ago. She did also mention that it was kinda pricey but well worth it. And well worth it, it was...but pricey? Not for me.

Want to know why? Because I got in for free. Oh and so did the rugrats.

First Friday of every month from 5-8pm is FREE. Yes sir. I am glad I called first though to verify (I wanted to find out what the catch was-- THERE ISN'T ONE!) because the lady did tell me that at about 5:45pm is when they start a waiting list and there is usually a line to get in. I was there at 445, no line, no wait, no money. 

I love free things.

Before I can go on with this, I have to tell you about one of my biggest pet peeves that I didn't even realize I had and how it happened, and also how I almost crawled out of my skin trying to contain myself...

The downside of this free event is that of course, I had to fly solo in the parenting department. The Hubs works a terrible swing shift and I never have a Friday night date. This isn't new, it's been going on for almost 3 years so I'm pretty used to it. I'm also pretty savvy in human tetris. I can carry two kids, a diaper bag, and 4 bags of groceries AND open the trunk all by myself. I'm not going to be modest, I handle my own pretty well.

 I strapped Ryan in the Baby Bjorn and off we went.

Tristan was over the moon with interest at all these things that I was allowing him to do. We pressed buttons, pulled knobs, yelled crazy gibberish at perfect strangers, splashed water, made loud noises...etc. All was well until we found the train table. We literally spent about 45 minutes at the train table. Ryan was bored, I was bored... it was time to leave. Knowing full well that this wasn't going to go well, I tried to gently tell Tristan that we still had other things to see. Of course, this makes no sense to him because as far as he was concerned, this was why we were here. I finally had to pry the trains from his hands and drag him out. I don't like to baby this kind of behavior and I've learned that the best way to deal with this (with Tristan of course- every child is different) is to ignore him...I have in the past, tried to nurture and baby and talk him through it but as harsh as it sounds, the best way to handle things with Tristan is to rip him from the situation. Out of sight, out of mind. 

Sooo... naturally my child is literally flopping around on the floor like a seal kicking and screaming. It was the most epic tantrum I have yet to see. I stood there and watched him waiting for him to calm down. I did have Ryan strapped to my body afterall and I didn't want to throw my baby in the Lion's Den by picking Tristan up off the floor. But again, not that I couldn't have if I wanted to. Anyway, the point is that I didn't want to. This is where the fun part of parenting comes in; I'm the parent and I make the rules.

So when this woman, who I assure you was really just trying to help, comes over and picks my 2 year old up like he is a baby and tries to rock him and coddle him... I wanted to run screaming from the room. At first, I was too shell shocked to do anything for about a minute. And then I recovered and tried desperately not to freak out. I calmly pried my 2 year old from this woman assuring her that he was fine and that I did not need her help...but I did say Thank you... although I felt that was very unnecessary. When I say PRY, I LITERALLY had to PRY my child from this complete stranger. 

Did I mention that Tristan was completely terrified when this strange woman picked him up. He went from freaking out to pure panic. I think I would too if some random person tried to hold me. This is another one of those "Before I had kids" realizations that I'm fairly sure most parents go through. Before I had kids, I would get really irritated when kids would be freaking out in public and parents were just standing there... and now I completely understand. So the moral of this story is: before you judge, you should have kids :)

And also, don't touch random people's children unless they're dying, you're asked to, or it's the apocalypse.

I assure you, that over time my screaming child will have figured out that Mommy ignores screaming children and favors well behaved ones.