A Good Wine Always Gives You Hiccups

I had the best freaking weekend.  It was spontaneous, exciting and completely unplanned.  If you had asked me a week ago I would have told you that these were the ingredients for a weekend of total mayhem.  Picture nap-deprived kids, bickering parents and more temper-tantrums than you see on The View.  Yet miraculously, none of this occurred. 

Of course, there were a few hiccups; I have come to realize that a good weekend is like a good wine – you should expect some hiccups.  The fact that you can deal with said hiccups with a giggle instead of a sneer is what lets you know that the wine (or the weekend in this case) was good.   

I don’t know if it was because of the fact that we all slept in that morning, or because sunshine makes everyone extra happy, but as we set out, all four of us were smiling like we had just won a trip to Disney World.  And the weirdest thing is that when we merged on to the highway ten minutes later to find traffic moving at 15 km/hr, nobody freaked out.  Usually I am one step away from road rage if someone takes too long moving their tail-lights when the light turns green, and considering our destination was 1.5 hours away at a normal rate of speed you would think I would have lost it.  But instead we just programmed our GPS to avoid highways, got the hell out of that mess at the next exit and toured the country-side in a roundabout yet scenic drive.

Two hours later we arrived at the ocean-themed theme park that was our destination.  Surprisingly we navigated the teeming crowds quickly and easily, had a good but overpriced lunch, and headed for some ocean-themed shows.  First we saw a dolphin show that was wowsome and even had little Simba pointing and clapping.  Then we went to see the whale show. 

Our first clue that this would be hiccup number two should have been that the show was called ‘Killer Whale Splash Session.’  The second clue was when we were warned that we were in the ‘wet zone’ and would get soaking, drenchingly wet if we stayed there.  By that time though, we had been out in the sun for 3 hours and were ridiculously hot, so a cool spray didn’t sound so bad.  The thing is, when a whale lies on its side and splashes 500 gallons of water at you with its tail and you are only 4 feet away, the fury of water that results does not in any way resemble a ‘cool spray’.  You are lucky if you don’t get knocked flat on your back (which a few people did).  Now considering that my children get freaked out if they’re made to stand in the shower, this fire-hose type of water onslaught sent them both into hysterics.  But for some reason getting drenched by a whale is one of those comedic things that you have to laugh at, kind of like getting a pie in the face, so what with me and Edward laughing so hard at them, they came around pretty quickly.  A quick change of clothes later, everyone was happy again and ready for dinner.

This is where we encountered our third hiccup and got banned for life from Boston Pizza.  I blame it on the cranberries.  Earlier in the day when we were taking the scenic route to the theme park, the kids got hungry and I let them down the entire contents of a bag of dried cranberries.   Apparently, cranberries make you poop.  Or at least they made Simba poop.  So much so that it leaked out of his diaper, covered the booster seat in which he had been sitting and managed to get smeared all the way up to his shoulder blades.  This resulted in me carrying him in a manner that looked extremely uncomfortable to the bathroom where I proceeded to use every single baby wipe I had with me to clean him up.   Then while trying to carry this massive pile of poop to the garbage can, I accidentally dropped it all on the floor.  Which is how I got banned from Boston Pizza. 

Add to all this that the kids did not nap at any time and were awake until 11pm that night, it is amazing that we all had such a great time.  Sure, we got stuck in a parking garage for an hour and didn’t get home until 2am.  But we kicked butt playing the license plate acronym game – the best of the night was BDRX – which I managed make stand for Bad Dudes R Xciting, which is both funny and true. 

So who needs a cure for the hiccups?  I sure don’t.  I say bring ‘em on.  And while I may miss the chicken parmesan at Boston Pizza, it was all worth it. 

-Wendy