Spring Break 2008, Day 2.
After much hullabaloo, we finally got out of the house in the late morning and went to play at PlayWorld. PlayWorld is, like I said in my last post, basically a gigantic hamster habitrail for kids. It's a like the "play tubes" at a fast-food joint on steroids. Massive. One loses one's children in the jumbled mass of little people, slides, stairs, and mesh-covered sides in the blink of an eye.
When we arrived, I commented on how incredibly full the parking lot was. More cars, vans, and various other modes of transportation than I have ever seen in that parking lot. Jenna astutely noted that there was also a bus. Oh. My. A bus. Which we could only assume had delivered a metric ton of little children to do exactly what we had come to do -- play.
Shock overcame me as we entered the building, because I have been there before when it was busy, but this was in-sane. I wanted to turn around and leave. There were easily fifty or sixty preschool-aged kids milling around in the lobby area. Fight-or-Flight kicked in on cue. Run. Run NOW. Run fast and run hard and don't. look. back.
But, I had brought the kids to play. Honestly, when you're the woman with six kids, you have no right to run away from the crowd, considering the crowd that follows you everywhere you go. Fighting the primal instinct to turn around and run in the opposite direction, I reasoned that perhaps the solid mass of children in the lobby were leaving. They all had their coats in hand (yes, my cynical, snarky side, who I like to call "Caroline," piped up with "OR MAYBE THEY'RE JUST GETTING HERE!" Shut-up, Caroline, or I'll turn and run screaming. Really.).
Thankfully, I got to mentally chastise Caroline because that ginormous group of kids did, in fact, leave just then. OK, no problem. Perhaps that was the busload. Hopefully, just enough kids remained inside the Play Room so that these guys would be entertained. Piece of cake.
More like a big piece of Humble Pie. It was an absolute zoo in there! A posting within the Play Room stated (rather sarcastically, in my opinion, in view of the Community of Children screaming and tearing about) that "room capacity should not exceed 100 people." Are you kidding me? It sounded like an entire grade school full of kids, all yelling on cue. I recorded about 10 seconds of it on my phone and sent it to Matt, so he could virtually share in my outing with me (More like laugh until he hurt. After all, he was probably in a safer and quieter place, being in the Weld Shop today and all. Relative solemnity compared to Habitrail Hell, if you ask me).
BUT! I did get to knit a bit while we were there. The Pi Shawl was the perfect thing to take with, and I even made it through the next increase, which put enough stitches on the needles for me to change
from Magic Looping to a regular circular. The Magic Looping was fine, but I've never done it with laceweight, and I really should've had a longer needle. (See that there? How I needed a longer circular but didn't go buy one? I struggled with what I had and it's fine. I showed some restraint!)
Here's the Pi Shawl as it stands right now. Looks like a colorful spiderweb, I think.
Be with me tomorrow, as Spring Break, Day 3, unfolds. Unending excitement, isn't it?