Beyond birthday parties and wish granting, our January was pretty normal. We were all fighting off the ever-present runny noses that stalk our household this time of year, we had some small adventures. On the weekend we visited Aaron’s cave on the west side of San Francisco, we made the trek up to the bay side of the city the next day for brunch at Fogo De Chão and to load up an old desk into the Hyundai that I wanted to use as Aaron’s Duplo station. It was a bit of work to extract the desk from storage, but it did give me a good opportunity to refresh my memory about what’s there and brainstorm how we might be able to re-organize things to move more stuff out of our garage.
The boys and I then took the MUNI Metro and then a street car to get to The Exploratorium. I mention the transit methods, because the journey was half the fun for the boys. We have a membership at the museum so it was a nice opportunity to spend 90 or so minutes there just seeing a few exhibits. Still, the boys wanted to stay longer and were quite grumpy when I explained we had to go home. It’s also tricky for one parent to take both boys there, as they tend to get excited and want to try everything, and so they run off in opposite directions.
The following weekend we went over to our local library to enjoy a Lion Dance for the Lunar New Year. It’s a nice event, and thankfully quite short, so the boys get some excitement but don’t end up getting too fidgety. Afterwards we explored the library, did some themed coloring, and met a nice family who were in town visiting.
On Sunday we went over to a local park that has a few rides because Adam wanted to ride the train there. Wish granted! MJ and Adam then ran off to the playground while Aaron and I went on the carousel, which was fun, and the tea cup ride, which was not fun. Aaron likes to make himself dizzy so he spun us a bunch, and I learned long ago that the spinning tea cups rides are not for me. Fortunately, the ride wasn’t long and it was a cool day, so I could just pause and sit through the nausea once we disembarked. No more tea cups!
MJ had to go out of town for work, so the following Sunday I had the boys solo, and with my continued bronchitis recovery I didn’t want to overdo it, but also knew being cooped up indoors in the rain wouldn’t be good for any of us. So we drove over to the McDonald’s in town for lunch and that’s when we all discovered the new McDonald’s Play Place. They’re really impressive. It was a two-story indoor playground with slides and climbing areas and bouncing areas. I realize it’s kind of funny that I didn’t know this, but I am not a big McDonald’s person and I lived in the city for years, where they don’t have the Play Places. The boys spent close to an hour there, and it was a bit of a challenge to get them to leave!
From there I wanted to check out a local toy store, Brick by Brick Toys, that specializes in new and used Lego. I suspected I’d like it and that the boys would enjoy some free-building in some of their Lego bins, but I didn’t expect that I’d love it as much as I did. We spent a full 90 minutes building Lego at the giant mixed bins, each of the boys came away with their own Lego car creations, and for $25 we added them to a big ziplock bag filled with other assorted Lego, instantly doubling our free-play Lego collection in one stop. It turns out that it’s in the same shopping plaza as Harbor Freight, so I let the boys go there too and pick out some new flashlights.
The rainy weather has continued, and hasn’t done any favors for my mood, and I’m definitely struggling. I’m grateful for the support I have though, and right now most of the challenges that life is throwing at us are pretty typical things. Bills need to be paid, a kiddo suddenly needs glasses, a half dozen things going wrong during a minor home improvement project. We’re just keeping going and doing our best.