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Another great escape
Jun. 1st, 2003 07:51 pmYesterday marked the first visit to Great Escape of the season for Abbey and me. Great Escape is one of the lesser lights of the Six Flags conglomerate, but it's big enough that we (and by "we," I mean" Abbey") never get bored with it. Yesterday's visit was part of a major Girl Scout event, which meant the place was mobbed by hordes of girls in matching T-shirts. As I stared at the crowd as we approached from the parking lot, I said out loud, "Well, this is my working definition of a nightmare." Two parents standing nearby immediately agreed. None of our kids noticed.
Now, it must be said up front that visiting a theme park with a kindergartner is a much different experience from visiting a theme park with your friends, in that the child is not going to want to go on rides that you can go on, too, or at least not ones that you'd want to go on; besides, if s/he's a little peanut like Abbey, s/he won't be tall enough, anyway. Add a crowd like yesterday's, and the whole experience becomes much like waiting at the DMV, only much, much more expensive.
So anyway, we waited for a half-hour to get our pictures done for our season passes (thank you, Kristi, for springing for those), then another half-hour to get through the security checkpoint (thank you, paranoid folks, for demanding that), and voila, we were in. She immediately saw her classmate Deanna being chaperoned by her adult cousin Charity, and immediately, the two kids charged into each other's arms, like one of them had just returned from the Merchant Marines. And then we were off, with Abbey leading the way to our first activity: looking at ducks.
Abbey, you see, is rather bossy, and she likes to be in control of the situation, which she can't very well do if she's been strapped into, say, a plastic faux rocket fuselage by a 16-year-old who makes marginally above minimum wage, and acts like it. So she charged from petting zoo to little storybook playhouse to giant concrete purple dragon-cow (don't ask), with us dashing behind her, begging her to let us go on an actual RIDE. Deanna in particular was getting rather miffed ("Abbey! Let's go on a ride NOW!"); I actually attempted a logical approach by saying, "Honey? Do you know how much our passes cost us? I personally would like to get something out of it, if you don't mind."
So she and Deanna did a couple of kiddie rides before Abbey steered us over to the games, because she reallyreallyreallyreally wanted to win a Prize. Unfortunately, thanks to such factors as a questionable Whac-a-Mole technique (in which she would whack the spot where them mole used to be), she won nothing, even though Deanna got herself a big blue stuffed puppy. This of course was tantamount to a life crisis for a six-year-old, complete with tears and wailing, "IT'S NOT FAIR!" So, being a typical dad, I shelled out for one last round of Whac-a-Mole for her and me, practically beating away other potential players with a stick. I ended up winning the round, but of course I didn't tell her that; when she got her toy (a puppy like Deanna's, only yellow), she accepted it with a passionate speech about how, if you practice and really try, you can do anything.
The rest of the day went smoothly, and Charity and I even got to go on some rides, too. I think I got a glimmer of Abbey and Deanna's true relationship as we headed to the car, though:
Abbey: Are we going home?
Me: [joking] Sure. Just as soon as I beat you up.
Deanna: Ooo! Can I watch?
Since we have season passes, we'll probably be doing this again, oh, about five or six more times this summer. Note to self: Invest in analgesics. It's money well-spent.
Now, it must be said up front that visiting a theme park with a kindergartner is a much different experience from visiting a theme park with your friends, in that the child is not going to want to go on rides that you can go on, too, or at least not ones that you'd want to go on; besides, if s/he's a little peanut like Abbey, s/he won't be tall enough, anyway. Add a crowd like yesterday's, and the whole experience becomes much like waiting at the DMV, only much, much more expensive.
So anyway, we waited for a half-hour to get our pictures done for our season passes (thank you, Kristi, for springing for those), then another half-hour to get through the security checkpoint (thank you, paranoid folks, for demanding that), and voila, we were in. She immediately saw her classmate Deanna being chaperoned by her adult cousin Charity, and immediately, the two kids charged into each other's arms, like one of them had just returned from the Merchant Marines. And then we were off, with Abbey leading the way to our first activity: looking at ducks.
Abbey, you see, is rather bossy, and she likes to be in control of the situation, which she can't very well do if she's been strapped into, say, a plastic faux rocket fuselage by a 16-year-old who makes marginally above minimum wage, and acts like it. So she charged from petting zoo to little storybook playhouse to giant concrete purple dragon-cow (don't ask), with us dashing behind her, begging her to let us go on an actual RIDE. Deanna in particular was getting rather miffed ("Abbey! Let's go on a ride NOW!"); I actually attempted a logical approach by saying, "Honey? Do you know how much our passes cost us? I personally would like to get something out of it, if you don't mind."
So she and Deanna did a couple of kiddie rides before Abbey steered us over to the games, because she reallyreallyreallyreally wanted to win a Prize. Unfortunately, thanks to such factors as a questionable Whac-a-Mole technique (in which she would whack the spot where them mole used to be), she won nothing, even though Deanna got herself a big blue stuffed puppy. This of course was tantamount to a life crisis for a six-year-old, complete with tears and wailing, "IT'S NOT FAIR!" So, being a typical dad, I shelled out for one last round of Whac-a-Mole for her and me, practically beating away other potential players with a stick. I ended up winning the round, but of course I didn't tell her that; when she got her toy (a puppy like Deanna's, only yellow), she accepted it with a passionate speech about how, if you practice and really try, you can do anything.
The rest of the day went smoothly, and Charity and I even got to go on some rides, too. I think I got a glimmer of Abbey and Deanna's true relationship as we headed to the car, though:
Abbey: Are we going home?
Me: [joking] Sure. Just as soon as I beat you up.
Deanna: Ooo! Can I watch?
Since we have season passes, we'll probably be doing this again, oh, about five or six more times this summer. Note to self: Invest in analgesics. It's money well-spent.
