Baby vs game room
Yesterday we went to give Maggie something to play with. My assumption on this trip was that we were going to some sort of pit of babies out in Franklin, TN and that I would toss her into a sea of writhing babbling cuteness. I believe ITMama had some sort of beliefs that this would make a good place for Maggie to get some human interaction as well.
It wasn’t quite what I expected, and turned out to be more of a privately owned Chuck-E-Cheese sort of vibe, but it did have some amazing playground equipment on the inside that I vowed to get her back to when she starts walking or is capable of enjoying such things.
It was also free, although we did end up laying down a couple of dollars so that Maggie could ride a virtual roller coaster and also a merry-go-round. Interestingly on both of these rides, the flashing “swipe card,” signs that indicated where you swipe your player cards were far more interesting to her nearly 14-month-old mind than anything that was actually going on.
No, the virtual terrors of the roller coaster were lost on her as fascination with a blinking light meant the 35 cents we’d paid to terrify our tiny tot with the faux thrills and chills of a coaster were for naught. The ponies with which she was to gallop around in her toddling fantasy world were ignored for blinking lights.
I mean we couldn’t even get her to pay attention to a TV screen because the insert money light was so fascinating.
Beyond that, we played on slides… plastic slides meant that Maggie got shocked a few times, but didn’t seem to associate it with anything negative in particular. She also once again *almost* walked but decided that it was in her best interests to scootch along the floor like she was in the movie The Ring… oh well.
While this was not what I was expecting, and there was no pool of adorable babies for her to play with, just us, she did seem to have a pretty good time until such time as her non-napping new 13 months old ways caught up to her and with the force of a ton of bricks made her a cranky baby.
Fortunately this was a few minutes after we’d left and strolled into a baby shop. And her crankiest these days is not particularly annoying, just kind of loud and indicates “place me somewhere where I don’t have to deal with these people.”
We did, and she was good.
The night should have ended with Mexican food, some swinging, and then bedtime, but something woke her up at 11:25, which is oddly right when the coordinated emergency broadcast alert was on TV so I’m wondering if somehow the phone she listens to music on might have started bleeping the alert tones.
Haven’t had a completely sobbing hysterical baby in a long time. It took half an hour to calm her down.
Other than that, a fine baby day.
