Have you ever had that feeling that you just need to get away? Drew and I were both feeling it this weekend. Usually, one of us is content to stay at home and do whatever and the other is itching to get out. Well, we both had the itch or should I say a rash to get out of our house this weekend! Like I've posted before, we have been very cautious of germs this year; therefore, we have not ventured to as many places as we normally do with our kids. Combine our fear of germs with taking four kids out for the day(one of which is very little and loves to put her mouth on everything she comes in contact with), and you get the picture, it can be exhausting! But this weekend we got cabin fever and needed to get out! We are a family that loves to visit museums, all kinds of museums, but especially children's museums! There is a great children's museum in Philadelphia that recently reopened its doors at a new location ironically called the Please Touch Museum. Yes, for a family who has been avoiding germs we went to a place called the Please Touch Museum. The new facility is amazing and we had a great time exploring the museum! In typical Marlett fashion we stayed until the Museum literally had to kick us out, we may never open a place but we will usually close a place down. After we left the museum we loaded all the kids in the van and off we went to find some dinner. Our criteria for finding a place to eat out goes something like this; nothing fancy or terribly expensive, some place kid friendly but with a healthy kids menu, and it needs to be relatively fast as we are not truly "dining out" we are "eating out" to meet our nutritional needs. We ended up eating at one of our favorite Mexican places, Chipotle, it happens to meet all of the above mentioned criteria. They do not have a kids menus, but they have on their menu a three taco entree which happens to be perfect for our three taco eaters. Chipotle is a counter service restaurant which means it's fast. However, for the first ten or so minutes that we are getting ready to eat Drew or I are constantly up and down getting napkins, forks and knives, drinks, sauces, whipping up somebodies drink, or getting an extra this or that you get the picture. We usually take turns eating, one of us holds the baby and feeds her some cheerios and the other attends to the other kids and manages to get a bite in here and there. Lucy is too small and not yet the best sitter to sit in any type of restaurant high chair, besides that they are always caked in some other baby's goo which is so gross! This system sounds chaotic and probably looks like it from the outside, but it works for us! That is until somebody needs to go to the bathroom. In this case it happened to be Sophie who is not really potty trained yet, but was obviously in need of going to the bathroom! I could write an entire post on this subject but will spare you the details. Drew first offered to take her but came back soon after saying that the men's room had no diaper changing table, and two he grabbed one of Lucy's size 1 diapers instead of a size 6 diaper for Sophie. So off I went to the Ladies room with Sophie who was saying in her usual tone of voice that the diaper daddy put on her was falling off and she needed to go potty! When in the ladies room I noticed that they did not have a diaper changing table either so here came her moment of truth, she needed to try to go on the potty! Sophie is so stubborn and difficult to persuade, but we had very few options available to us at the time and she obviously needed to go. So, I did what any mother would have done in this situation, I bribed her big time! I told her that we would march right across the parking lot to Target and I would let her pick out any kind of "big girl underwear" she wanted if she would just poop on the potty. I even threw in a pair of shoes that light up. Yes, I did! Lowe and behold she did it, she pooped on the potty and was so excited to tell the rest of the family what she had just done and where we were about to go next! F.Y.I I have a thing with public rest rooms that have no changing area and whose soap and paper towel dispensers are too high for the average little person to reach. I won't even get into the heights of sinks and the types of faucets in public restrooms. All I'm trying to say is that a small majority of the worlds population are children and they probably frequent a bathroom more than the average adult so couldn't they make them just a little kid friendlier? I'll just leave it at that. By the time we were done in the bathroom Drew and the kids were done eating and Sophie was anxious to go to Target and get her prize. I decided to pack up the rest of my dinner and eat it later because it was obviously time for us to make our exit. The kids were getting their coasts on and I was putting Lucy into her car seat when Megan, who was swinging in between two bar stools that were cemented to the ground, fell and hit her head on the foot rest of one of the bar stools. Megan is very tough so when she cries you know she is truly hurt. She came over to me and buried her head in my chest and started to cry, you know that cry where no sound comes out of their mouth for thirty or so seconds, that kind of a cry. I kissed the top of her head where she hit it and held her tight so that she would not disturb the entire restaurant with her crying when Drew looked at me and said "Why is your face covered in blood?". Oh my gosh, I looked down at Megan's head and notice that she had split open her head. The head bleeds a lot, and a lot of bleeding it did! Jack is so much like his dad in that he can not handle blood or seeing someone in pain. So guess what, he collapsed on the floor when he realized what had happened, I am not kidding! Drew picked him up and laid him in on the booth where we were seated, and I took Megan into the bathroom to assess the situation. I realized very quickly that this was going to need stitches! Change of plans we needed to find the nearest hospital ER and put our outing to Target on hold. Because we were in Philadelphia, we headed to CHOP where we knew they would be able to take care of us. Yes, you read correctly, we went to the ER at CHOP. When we arrived we were lucky in that they were not very crowded, but they did warn me that they had several cases of R.S.V and so we should put a mask on the baby. There is really only one other place we could have gone that has more germs than the Please Touch Museum and that was the CHOP ER. I feel like all attempts at germ control went out the window in one day, hopefully we did not pick up any souvenirs from our outings if you know what I mean. Can it get any worse...actually a little. While Megan was in triage, Drew came in with the other kids. Sophie managed to slip on the floor and hit her head on the door frame of the triage room, I kid you not I am not making this up! She got an enormous "goose egg" on her head or what they call a hematoma in medical terminology. The triage nurse was surprised to see her head and commented on how that has never happened before. I told them that the sooner they fix Megan's head the better for them and us, as things were really starting to go downhill fast! Two ice packs(one for Sophie and one for Megan), several piles of gauze, two Litacane gel applications, two staples in Megan's head, one Popsicle, and four stickers for being very brave later we were on our way home! I must say that I was a little nervous about our drive home as we were not having the best of luck yesterday. Drew and I commented on how we feel like we must be on Candid Camera or something. If you know something we don't, could you please let us in on it! All of this just because we needed to get out!
Have you ever had that feeling that you just need to get away? Drew and I were both feeling it this weekend. Usually, one of us is content to stay at home and do whatever and the other is itching to get out. Well, we both had the itch or should I say a rash to get out of our house this weekend! Like I've posted before, we have been very cautious of germs this year; therefore, we have not ventured to as many places as we normally do with our kids. Combine our fear of germs with taking four kids out for the day(one of which is very little and loves to put her mouth on everything she comes in contact with), and you get the picture, it can be exhausting! But this weekend we got cabin fever and needed to get out! We are a family that loves to visit museums, all kinds of museums, but especially children's museums! There is a great children's museum in Philadelphia that recently reopened its doors at a new location ironically called the Please Touch Museum. Yes, for a family who has been avoiding germs we went to a place called the Please Touch Museum. The new facility is amazing and we had a great time exploring the museum! In typical Marlett fashion we stayed until the Museum literally had to kick us out, we may never open a place but we will usually close a place down. After we left the museum we loaded all the kids in the van and off we went to find some dinner. Our criteria for finding a place to eat out goes something like this; nothing fancy or terribly expensive, some place kid friendly but with a healthy kids menu, and it needs to be relatively fast as we are not truly "dining out" we are "eating out" to meet our nutritional needs. We ended up eating at one of our favorite Mexican places, Chipotle, it happens to meet all of the above mentioned criteria. They do not have a kids menus, but they have on their menu a three taco entree which happens to be perfect for our three taco eaters. Chipotle is a counter service restaurant which means it's fast. However, for the first ten or so minutes that we are getting ready to eat Drew or I are constantly up and down getting napkins, forks and knives, drinks, sauces, whipping up somebodies drink, or getting an extra this or that you get the picture. We usually take turns eating, one of us holds the baby and feeds her some cheerios and the other attends to the other kids and manages to get a bite in here and there. Lucy is too small and not yet the best sitter to sit in any type of restaurant high chair, besides that they are always caked in some other baby's goo which is so gross! This system sounds chaotic and probably looks like it from the outside, but it works for us! That is until somebody needs to go to the bathroom. In this case it happened to be Sophie who is not really potty trained yet, but was obviously in need of going to the bathroom! I could write an entire post on this subject but will spare you the details. Drew first offered to take her but came back soon after saying that the men's room had no diaper changing table, and two he grabbed one of Lucy's size 1 diapers instead of a size 6 diaper for Sophie. So off I went to the Ladies room with Sophie who was saying in her usual tone of voice that the diaper daddy put on her was falling off and she needed to go potty! When in the ladies room I noticed that they did not have a diaper changing table either so here came her moment of truth, she needed to try to go on the potty! Sophie is so stubborn and difficult to persuade, but we had very few options available to us at the time and she obviously needed to go. So, I did what any mother would have done in this situation, I bribed her big time! I told her that we would march right across the parking lot to Target and I would let her pick out any kind of "big girl underwear" she wanted if she would just poop on the potty. I even threw in a pair of shoes that light up. Yes, I did! Lowe and behold she did it, she pooped on the potty and was so excited to tell the rest of the family what she had just done and where we were about to go next! F.Y.I I have a thing with public rest rooms that have no changing area and whose soap and paper towel dispensers are too high for the average little person to reach. I won't even get into the heights of sinks and the types of faucets in public restrooms. All I'm trying to say is that a small majority of the worlds population are children and they probably frequent a bathroom more than the average adult so couldn't they make them just a little kid friendlier? I'll just leave it at that. By the time we were done in the bathroom Drew and the kids were done eating and Sophie was anxious to go to Target and get her prize. I decided to pack up the rest of my dinner and eat it later because it was obviously time for us to make our exit. The kids were getting their coasts on and I was putting Lucy into her car seat when Megan, who was swinging in between two bar stools that were cemented to the ground, fell and hit her head on the foot rest of one of the bar stools. Megan is very tough so when she cries you know she is truly hurt. She came over to me and buried her head in my chest and started to cry, you know that cry where no sound comes out of their mouth for thirty or so seconds, that kind of a cry. I kissed the top of her head where she hit it and held her tight so that she would not disturb the entire restaurant with her crying when Drew looked at me and said "Why is your face covered in blood?". Oh my gosh, I looked down at Megan's head and notice that she had split open her head. The head bleeds a lot, and a lot of bleeding it did! Jack is so much like his dad in that he can not handle blood or seeing someone in pain. So guess what, he collapsed on the floor when he realized what had happened, I am not kidding! Drew picked him up and laid him in on the booth where we were seated, and I took Megan into the bathroom to assess the situation. I realized very quickly that this was going to need stitches! Change of plans we needed to find the nearest hospital ER and put our outing to Target on hold. Because we were in Philadelphia, we headed to CHOP where we knew they would be able to take care of us. Yes, you read correctly, we went to the ER at CHOP. When we arrived we were lucky in that they were not very crowded, but they did warn me that they had several cases of R.S.V and so we should put a mask on the baby. There is really only one other place we could have gone that has more germs than the Please Touch Museum and that was the CHOP ER. I feel like all attempts at germ control went out the window in one day, hopefully we did not pick up any souvenirs from our outings if you know what I mean. Can it get any worse...actually a little. While Megan was in triage, Drew came in with the other kids. Sophie managed to slip on the floor and hit her head on the door frame of the triage room, I kid you not I am not making this up! She got an enormous "goose egg" on her head or what they call a hematoma in medical terminology. The triage nurse was surprised to see her head and commented on how that has never happened before. I told them that the sooner they fix Megan's head the better for them and us, as things were really starting to go downhill fast! Two ice packs(one for Sophie and one for Megan), several piles of gauze, two Litacane gel applications, two staples in Megan's head, one Popsicle, and four stickers for being very brave later we were on our way home! I must say that I was a little nervous about our drive home as we were not having the best of luck yesterday. Drew and I commented on how we feel like we must be on Candid Camera or something. If you know something we don't, could you please let us in on it! All of this just because we needed to get out!
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well, it can't get worse than that so next time should be better!
take care of yourselves
carey
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