My children have informed me that simply everyone went to Florida over spring break--which was last week for us. No matter how many times I tried to tell them that this could not be true because: a. all of our neighbors were here, and b. if everyone was in Florida, why was Target still so crowded?
This was met with four separate versions of heavy sighing and dramatic eye rolling.
We did not go to Florida. Because we are mean. And annoying. And insert your own childish opinion here.
Also, we thought it might be nice to be able to pay our taxes and not have to spend the summer in jail.
My children thought this was like, soooo stupid.
My children are not afraid of jail. My children dare you, Uncle Sam, to come tell them that they have to pay you. And just who is F.I.C.A., anyway?
I am afraid of jail. I know that I fantasize sometimes about how awesome jail would be--no cooking, no laundry, lots of hours to lay in bed and read--and believe me, all their caterwauling had me fantasizing up a storm--but truth be told, I don't really want to go to there.
So we went to Ohio instead.
There was swimming in an indoor/outdoor pool. This was only for the brave-hearted. After all, it is April and we were only as far south as Cincinnati. There was eating at restaurants. Once even with dessert after! Mary was delighted. She had never ordered dessert at a restaurant before. (Poor child. She is culturally deprived. I just found out today that we have never taken her to play putt-putt golf. We are philistines.) There was the Cincinnati Zoo. It was there that we found our group in 100% agreement: bear pee stinks. There was the Newport Aquarium. The verdict? Sharks, good! Octopus, gross! There was time by the Ohio river where my boys tested my nerves by inching much too close to the water. There was the "stalking of" and "being stalked by" cute boys at the pool. Also there might have been some discussion of our awesome spray tans and their random blotchiness. Oooh! Attractive! There was a grand argument over the foldout couch--by leaps and bounds the least comfortable bed I've ever slept in. After the first night, my beloved and I told our children that one "lucky" pair was going to get to give up their queen bed and sleep on the foldout couch. Can I just tell you that if I hadn't been so annoyed, I might have actually found the fact that my children argued over this medieval torture device humorous? There was pizza! Mmm... LaRosa's! And finally, there was a short trip through IKEA. (No, really kids! It'll be fun! You can pretend to live in these little displays. We might even come out with one less kid!)
There was also taking Maggie's picture at random places with her Spanish vocabulary list so that she could make a book of our trip in Spanish for extra credit when we got home. (She seriously needed to earn pesetas so that she could retake a test that she "didn't really, like, um, do so well on.") And there was the playing of The Alphabet Game every time we were in the car. We are seriously cutthroat in that game. Playing it with us is not recommended for children under three, pregnant women, or people with heart conditions.
Okay. So it wasn't Florida. But we spent two days away from home and when we got back, we all were in agreement again that we had had a good time.
That is until my kids went to school and saw the tans of everybody that went to Florida.
