Legoland | One Summer At Home

You know, kind of like the last supper, but without everyone sitting on one side and no Judas, that we know of. Since this past Tuesday was our last one before both kids are in school, I tried to make it extra fun. And what’s more fun than whine-walking a mile to the pet store? Unfortunately, we got there about 45 minutes before they opened, which Rosie did not understand.

Rosie at Polka Dog Bakery — You see, Rosie can’t read, tell time.

Thankfully, JP is a treasure trove of playgrounds, and there was one nearby that we’d miraculously never been to. Hazy and George killed the time working on their American Ninja Warrior training and having a dance fight.

But come on, it was the Last Tuesday. You didn’t think we were just gonna run errands, did you? You may recall that last month when the kids got a Legoland game-ending whining penalty. (I may or may not be writing this wile watching the Patriots game.) Well, the Last Tuesday was their redo and THEY. WERE. PSYCHED.

Legoland Boston — They don’t get these kind of verticals for non-LegoLand adventures…

We’ve been to LegoLand a few times now, including one time where we almost broke George and another time where we definitely broke him. We know how to shoot the spiders on the ride, where to find the hidden Cheers window, when to shout “LEGO!” on the factory tour, and how to beat the Ninjago lasers (at least on “novice”). And I’m proud to say that we made it through all of LegoLand without breaking George.*

My favorite ride at LegoLand is the play structure, because I get to sit on a bench and do nothing while the kids entertain themselves. Just kidding, it’s the ride where you get to shoot spiders with laser guns because I hate spiders and I’m awesome at shooting them with laser guns.

LegoLand tea break — This is how you win at LegoLand.

We spent a lot of time, as we always do, making our model cars. I love watching Hazy tinker with her car. I’m not sure why they looked completely miz during the actual time trials, except maybe because my car smoked theirs! Guess my 35+ years of additional life experience finally paid off, turds.

Of course, you can’t go to LegoLand without seeing a 4D movie. Ours was about a farting skunk, an idiot bird, and a battle between an evil gator and a heroic lion for a powerful chi energy ball. I’m serious. I’ve gotta get a job writing 4D movie scripts for LegoLand.

4D theatre at LegoLand — Cooler than a farting skunk.

This might have been our best trip to LegoLand yet. Yeah, Last Tuesday!

jumping under LegoLand giraffe — Let’s touch the LEGO giraffe’s LEGO groin!

We got back just in time to have :30 for Hazy to change into her soccer clothes, me to grab a snack and Rosie, and George to find a way to make us late. I grabbed some Seriously Sharp cheddar (Hazy’s fav) and some Ritz, and Hazy ate them on the way to soccer while walking the dog.

snacks on the way to soccer — This is why girls run the world.

On the way to soccer, I gave Hazy a lecture about actually playing soccer this season, and not just chatting with her friends. The funny thing is, most of her soccer friends are the daughters of my bootcamp friends, and we’re always getting in trouble at bootcamp for talking too much.

girls soccer team — The next generation of social exercisers

Oh well. Aren’t team sports mostly about learning teamwork, communication skills, and the latest gossip?

Coming up next: what we did on our last day before school. Hint: not much.

*Unfortunately, on the walk to the car, George broke himself. He walked right into a pole. He wasn’t even looking at his (non-existent) cell phone! He got a big bloody gash on his forehead, and we had to stop by Outback Steakhouse to get a bag of ice. Thanks, Outback Steakhouse bartender! And although this is George’s 3rd (4th?) head injury this year, I assure you he’s still a genius. He figured out how to play the Imperial Death March on recorder this morning. I tried to get it on video, but he refused, saying, “then you’ll show it to everyone.” He’s right.

Let’s wrap up last week’s recap and mentally prepare ourselves for a week of no One Summer At Home. I’ll be on vacation – from life, the blog, and even — gasp — Facebook.

On Wednesday, we went to Oma and Opa’s, and, great news, no one got kicked out of the pool. The other good news is that Rosie and Teddy are getting along quite well, if you count her stealing his bed again as “quite well.” But look how nicely they walk with Oma!

At the pool, we played some low-volume Marco Polo and I also introduced them to Sharks and Minnows, which we used to play at our neighborhood pool growing up. Our deep end was 8’6″, and in our version of Shark, the shark treaded water in the middle and yelled “Shark!” and then all the minnows would attempt to swim across the bottom of the pool to the other side. Since tag was too easy, the shark had to drag your body to the surface of the pool in order to catch you. This resulted in a lot of underwater fisticuffs and I believe helped prepare me for my short lived water polo career in college. For Hazy and George, I did a JV version where I was the shark and they couldn’t get tagged if they were underwater. I let them make it across a few times before completely annihilating them. I’m not a monster.

After we worked up an appetite playing games at the pool, we came home to a feast of Chinese “lion’s head.” Although Opa tried to convince George that it was in fact a lion’s head, lion’s head is in fact made up of ground pork meatballs (the head) with sauteed napa cabbage (the mane) and it’s exquisite.

Chinese "lion's head" meal — I ate until I felt sick and then ate a little more.

On Thursday, we stayed local. First, we did our popsicle walk with Rosie.

popsicle time — These poor kids can’t eat a GD popsicle without me making them take a selfie. Whatever. Guess who buys them those popsicles?

Then, we headed to our awesome new Jamaica Plain library, where I ambitiously/foolishly took out two books for myself to read on vacation. The turds busied themselves with searching for all the Star Wars books in the entire Boston Public Library.

computers at Jamaica Plain public library — “Help us find these 8,202 books please.”

Usually, my M.O. is that I buy fun activities at the beginning of the summer and tell the kids I’m gonna save them for a “special day” and then forget all about them until I clean the side closet sometime in October. But not this summer! I’ve already used the Giant Bubble kit, and Thursday I whipped out the H20GO triple water slide!

It was all fun and games until we decided to all go on the slide together. After all, it is a triple slide, right? I went in the middle and somehow ended up basically throwing my entire weight on George’s leg. Given that I launched myself pretty hard and also have eaten ice cream/popsicles 9 days out of 10 this summer, it wasn’t pretty. When the kids were babies, I could interpret what each of their different cries meant. It’s harder now, but I can definitely tell a fake cry from a real one, and sadly this was a real one. For a few tense moments, I thought I had broken his leg, but it turned out it was pretty superficial. I eventually got him to get back on the slide, as long as I promised not to go at the same time. You’ll be happy to know that George has his full leg strength back now and I have not been shamed out of eating frozen snacks.

Friday was another slow news day. The kids woke up fairly early and did some Star Wars themed coloring in the toy pit.

Star Wars fan art — I guarantee my kids can name more fictional Star Wars planets than real ones. Although, to my credit, I did recently teach them about Uranus so I could tell them the joke I made up. (“Which planet has the most poop on it?” “Uranus”)

I had planned on taking them to LegoLand. We have a couple of discount coupons and it’s one of their favorite places on earth. I’m also a fan, especially of the entire city of Boston made out of LEGO bricks. However, after the coloring, there was a whole lot of fighting and whining, and I just didn’t want to reward them for being so uncool. At lunch time, I asked them if they thought their behavior was worthy of a trip to LegoLand and they both said no. Sometimes they surprise me in their rare moments of self-awareness. So instead of going on rides and watching 4D movies (the 4th “D” is fake precipitation!), we did a quick jaunt to Ocean State Job Lot to look for some special unnamed dog treats that Rosie likes. Almost as exciting.

special shopping carts — Do anyone else’s kids embarrass them by running right into the motorized carts for disabled people?

We couldn’t find the mystery treats but found a designer impostor version and hoped for the best. We did find Star Wars Jell-O Jiggler molds though! [Fun fact: I used to work on the Jell-O account and the one thing that really stayed with me is that scientists did an EEG on a lime green Jell-O mold and found that its brain wave pattern was similar to that of a human brain.]

The second hardest part is that they didn’t actually like the taste of the Jigglers.

You have to admit, they look pretty awesome though.

I’m happy to report that they were much less combative/whiny the rest of the day, so at night, we continued with our Star Wars theme and met Matty at the Hatch Shell to see Rogue One.

It was such a treat to hang out with the whole family (even Rosie!), plus Matty brought me a literal treat, this tropical drink freezer pop slushie thing. He loves me! Rosie got seriously alarmed when <SPOILER ALERT> the Death Star blew up Jedha, which made me think George’s repeated playings of the Imperial Death March had gotten through to her.