Monday, April 4, 2011

Chucky Jesus

On weekend mornings, its become habit for us to allow the kiddo to watch an hour or so of PBS.  Mostly so that we can sleep in.  An hour of Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers is less harmful than a cranky, under-rested parent for an entire Saturday.  Or so we tell ourselves.

Anyway, even though PBS doesn't air commercials, all the shows have sponsors that have announcements and Otto pays as much attention to these as he does the actual shows.  Consequently, for weeks and weeks now, he has been singing the praises of Chucky Cheese's - When pressed to explain what, exactly, Chucky Cheese's is, all we got was "Its where a kid can be a kid, Mom!!"  So otherwise, he had no idea WTF the place is.  All he knew was that its COOL.  This was simultaneously adorable and completely annoying. 

On Saturday, due to some kid swapping as a result of run/biking schedules, after a 10 mile trail run, I ended up alone with Otto in the big city for a bit.  We went thrift shopping and then I nonchalantly suggested we get some lunch.  Against every instinct in my body, I made a decision based solely on the desire to gobsmack my child- and it worked.  As we pulled into the parking lot and he saw that huge weird cartoon mouse staring down from the sign, the sheer joy and surprise on his face was priceless and totally worth the 2 hours of beeping and booping and robotronic animal singing and screaming children I was about to live through.

"HOLY GUACAMOLE!!!!" he said from the back seat. 

What followed can only be described as an orgy of shitty pizza (he ate 3 slices and honestly, after my run I was so hungry, it even tasted good to me), video games, and excited exclamations of 3 year old ecstasy.  The place was way cleaner and better run than I had expected and honestly, although we won't be going back any time soon, it was super fun just to watch my kid be that. fucking. happy.

At the altar of cheesy, noisy, crazy 3 year old joy

That said, its gonna be a loooooong time before we go back.  One can only handle so many surprise cheesy, noisy pilgrimages in a lifetime.  Heh.

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