Day One, Part Deux: the Recap

Before I talk about today, which is just starting, I thought I'd recap yesterday's announced activities.

The Germantown egg hunt was crowded, as I knew it would be. We left around 4:30 to beat the traffic, which worked until we hit the trafic turning into the park. After winding through the full lots in a line of cars, I parallel parked in a space not more than a foot longer than my van. We walked over to the main area and met up with SAM and her parents and kids before proceeding to the inflatables and petting zoo. The petting zoo featured baby ducklings and chicks that had been dyed unnatural shades of red, orange, and green so they could be squeezed and dropped by hundreds of stubby little hands, which made my heart hurt. There was also a tiny pig in a pink sequined dress and a trailer full of goats that the kids could feed. Once we had exhausted all of those options and tired of the crowd, we decided to kill time on the playground until time for he egghunt. Some people were already swarming ove to the fields, which had been designated for specific age groupings. The boys wanted to go ahead, so I sent them on and asked Calvin to take Joshua to the field for his age. Genevieve was loving the super-tall playground, which was really designed for older children. I circled the equipment ten feet beow her as she gleefully ran from one end to the other and slid down the towering slides in her big sister's lap. Before long, a dejected Calvin came back with the news that he was too old for the egg hunt. The highest age grouping was seven and eight year olds. He was really disappointed, and I started on a mental tirade about how we complain about kids growing up too fast in this country, but then we treat ten year olds like their childhoods are over. I suggested he just go to the eight year old one, but he said two people over there had already asked him how old he was. Of course, that set me off on the mental tirade about how as soon as they get too old to be cute little dress-up dolls, we treat boys like they are threatening and suspicious. Pretty soon, though, I remembered that there was a flashlight egg hunt scheduled for ages 10-12 later that night. It just never occurred to me that this meant that age group couldn't participate in the daytime hunt. How can my baby be too old?

Genevieve refused to leave the playground, so we stayed and played while SAM and her multi-generational entourage took Somerset and headed off to the hunt. Calvin tried to buck up and played with Genevieve, sliding with her and making sure she didn't fall. Pretty soon we lured her away with the false promise of swings and headed toward the hunt areas. We stopped by the giant inflatable slide, which had been passed over before because of the long line but now stood practically abandoned. Calvin offered to slide with Genevieve, but I didn't think he could carry her up the steep, laadder-like steps to the top, so he slid alone. Genevieve still wanted to slide, so I climbed up and slid with her in my lap, which she loved.

We finally made it to the ball fields, where the plastic eggs had been strewn about on the ground. Just as we walked up, the siren sounded, prompting parents in the nearby one and two year old area to clutch their offspring to their chests while attempting to run faster and farther than any of the other adults. I marveled as the ground was mysteriously cleared of eggs in an outward-moving arc, even though I never saw anyone bend down to pick them up. It was like locusts moving over a corn field.

A dejected Joshua came ot with only one egg, having dropped the second and final one he found. Somerset and Miss M did okay, each finding about five eggs, one each with a "You've won a prize" message inside. Somerset's prize was a neon blue "Bubble Wand." I felt so bad for the boys and their reluctant but cooperative agreement to go to Los Tortugas, which seemed less than promising to them, that I heaved a deep sigh and asked if they wanted to go to CiCi's pizza instead, which perked them up considerably. So I wrote myself a mental raincheck for Los Torugas and set off to the wilds of Poplar Plaza and the $3.00 pizza buffet.