g-o-o-d c-l-e-a-n f-u-n 

my SAD (semi-adopted daughter) started day care today. while the house seems somewhat empty without her, i know it's where she needs to be right now. to thank me for helping her out in a tight spot, my SAD's real mom planned a trip to Chuck E Cheese's.

departing from hickville around 11, we spent the next two hours being entertained by SAD's sibling, brother, with spelling and math games. which went something like this:

brother: "ok, chewy. what's 2+2+20?"
chewy: "2+2+20=24."
brother: "nope."
chewy: "ok...what does 2+2+20 equal?"
brother: "26"
chewy: "are you sure? cause i'm pretty sure 2+2=4 and 4+20=24. are you using that new math?"
long pause.......
brother: "ok."
another pause....
brother: "mom...it's your turn. give me an easy word."
mom: "ok. i've got a really easy one. p-u-r-p-l-e"
brother: "puh...puh...puh-ur...puh-urp-lllll....PURPLE!!!"

and so it went for the greater part of two hours. it did keep him busy enough not to ask a jillion times how much further it was to "chunky" cheese or his favorite line "how long would it take me to walk from here to chunky cheese from here?" oh the joys of being 5.

roughly two hours later, we pulled into little rock and stopped off for an adult lunch at a chinese restaurant located in one of the local malls. i can't remember what it was called but it wasn't the china wok and they didn't slop our food onto paper plates or toss us soy sauce in small plastic pouches. granted it wasn't the best chinese food i'd ever had but it was the best i'd had in arkansas. wanton soup, egg rolls, chicken drumettes (i've never understood the appearance of these on the chinese menu.), orange chicken, shrimp and broccoli stir fry, and of course rice. in other words WAY too much food for the two of us, even with help from the 3 munchkins. as we prepared to leave, i looked at the food still mounded on the table and thought what a shame it was for it all to be thrown away. there was no way it would have survived the 2 hour drive home complete with a 2-3 hour wait in the hot sun while the kids tromped around in chuck e cheese. but wait...we're in little rock. not hickville. with that the food was boxed up and tossed in the car to await it's delivery to the first homeless person we passed.

once we fed brother's desire to ride the elevator (translation:escalator) more than two mothers with toddlers in strollers cared for, we loaded the kids back into the car and headed for the final destination...dun dun da..."chunky" cheese.

it's like veags for kids. blinking lights. bells and whistles almost drowning out the squeals of a hundred or so kids. and the fun those kids had...it was well worth the exhaustion on the part of the adults. oh and the pizza's not as bad as you might think it would be.

the ride home was uneventful. the kids slept. we chatted. oh and we did indeed find a homeless person to give the spoils of our adult lunch to...at least SAD's mom did. i was busy making sure the munchkins didn't hurt themselves or someone else as they crawled all over the rides and jungle gym in the toddler area. good friends, good fun, and good deeds. you can't really ask for a better way to spend the day.  ¶ 9:12 AM |