This past weekend was just plain awesome.  It was a busy one complete with lots of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, but it was worth it!  On Saturday, I attended a baby shower and had way more fun than I usually expect to have at a baby shower.  Great company, great food, great cake (not too sweet with a light and delish whipped cream frosting), and great champagne punch that I was definitely not shy about diving into once or twice (ok, so I had about four cups, but they were small cups. Ok, maybe they weren’t that small).

Since I was gone most of the afternoon on Saturday, yesterday was spent completely devoted to my husband and son.  We had a lazy morning at home, which consisted of lots of coffee and a new Wii fishing game, and then we went out to lunch at one of our favorite local deli’s, and then to the Connecticut Science Center…one of my son’s favorite spots to go with his Daddy.  That’s right, I said his DADDY.

You see, yesterday was only my second visit to the CT Science Center.  I went there once with my boys when it first opened, but since then, it has pretty much been designated as a “Daddy’s Day Out” kind of place.  The hubster was smart and bought us a membership on our first visit, and it has more than paid for itself.  He and my son have been at least a half a dozen times.  It’s kind of become their “thing” on weekends when Mommy is occupied with some kind of other adult activity.  My tagging along yesterday was a rare exception to this rule.  And now I know why.

Ok, it’s confession time.  And I’m sincerely hoping that my bloggy sister will forgive me for this one, especially since she and I are actually meeting (WOO-HOO!!!!) this coming weekend at Bloggy Boot Camp and sharing a hotel room!

I’m a pretty cool chick and most people like me (or at least I think so), but in certain situations, I can be kind of a motherbitch.  Again, I’m hoping my bloggy sister forgives me for not only admitting that I can be kind of a motherbitch sometimes, but also for borrowing her word for this post.

(My asking for her forgiveness is really just a formality because she is beyond awesome and won’t care that I act like a motherbitch once in a while and she certainly won’t care that I’ve stolen her word.  It’s not my first offense, by the way).

Let me go ahead and set the scene for you.  The CT Science Center has this awesome new exhibit all about polar bears and penguins and things found in the Arctic.  There is even this cool little polar bear’s den that you can crawl into and hide!  My son was terrified to go in there because there is also a little button that you push and it makes a sound like a polar bear’s growl.  The hubster was another story.  All six feet of him crawled into that two foot tall opening.  And I think he was pretty psyched about it.

I actually wondered why there weren’t a bunch of kiddos climbing over each other to crawl into this den.  It seemed kind of strange to me because I thought that this was the sort of thing that kids would go nuts for.  As we made our way to the other end of the exhibit, I figured out the reason for the uncharacteristic lack of children.  It was because there was another attraction on the other end of the room that was completely stealing the show.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the penguin slide.

The little guy doing a face plant going down the penguin slide?  Yep, that’s my son.  The little kid who is pushing him down the slide?  Yep, he belonged to some other parent who was nowhere to be seen.  And as for the guy in the right corner of the photo who is sort of giving me the evil eye?  Yep, that’s the hubster.  And he’s giving me the evil eye for a reason. He’s giving me the evil eye because after six years of marriage, there is a certain look on my face that he has come to know and most definitely doesn’t love.  I guess it’s the motherbitch look, which basically means that I’m about to have diarrhea of the mouth without giving a flying fig about who hears me.

You can’t see it in the picture because it is hidden behind the hubster, but there is a sign next to the penguin slide that gives the rules for the penguin slide.  I don’t remember exactly what they said word for word, but the gist of it was pretty much something like this:

- Remove your shoes

- Only one child at a time on the slide

- No pushing, hitting, shoving, etc.  (And if that wasn’t on the list of rules, it really should’ve been).

I really don’t care how square I sound right now, but those rules are put there for a reason.  And I’m pretty sure the reason has something to do with the fact that the CT Science Center doesn’t want some huge lawsuit against them because some kid cracked his chin open on the steps leading up to that slide (I witnessed one kid come within an inch of doing just that yesterday).  And I guess having that little sign right next to the slide is enough to take the liability off the higher-ups at the Science Center.  And I guess that the good folks at the Science Center are operating under the assumption that people will actually pay attention to these rules.  And guess what?  Most people just don’t give a crap.

First and foremost, I want to state very clearly that I am NOT faulting the kids who were playing on that slide yesterday.  Kids are expected to break the rules, because they’re kids and that’s what they do.  My problem lies with the parents who either stand there and do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when their kids are clambering over mine and practically throwing him off the back of the slide so that they can get down it before he does.  My problem lies with the parent who wandered off to check out the penguin footprints around the corner and left their kid on the slide as he proceeded to shove MY kid down the slide and almost smashed his face into the fake ice.  And don’t even get me started about the parents who don’t make their kids take their shoes off before getting on the slide (Rule #1 people!), not to mention the little girl who failed to remove her shoes and proceeded to go down the slide with a PENCIL in her hand.  A PENCIL!!!

Thankfully no eyes were lost at the Science Center yesterday, but I’ll tell you one thing.  Everyone in the general vicinity of that slide could hear me talking VERY loudly to my son, making sure that he knew the rules.  Here’s a little excerpt.

“Ok sweetheart…YOU are going to wait your turn to go down the slide.  Just because SOME people don’t know how to wait THEIR turn doesn’t mean that YOU don’t have to wait YOUR turn.  (Hubster was turning red at that point).

“Um…EXCUSE ME….but I think the sign says that you’re supposed to take your SHOES OFF!”  ”Um, EXCUSE ME….but you are supposed to go DOWN the slide not UP it.”

“Sweetheart…watch out for these BIG kids because THEY AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION AND WILL CLIMB RIGHT OVER YOU!”

Oh yeah.  I was a complete and total motherbitch yesterday.  But in my defense, after I saw that one kid almost crack his chin in two, I just got a little nervous.  I mean, I was having such a great weekend and really didn’t need a trip to the ER thrown in.

And don’t even get me started on the germs that are probably on the bottom of those kids’ shoes.  I’m kind of a germophobe as it is, but throw in the fact that I’m headed to Bloggy Boot Camp on Friday and the fact that there are a million sickies running around this state right now and the fact that I will absolutely throw a toddler-style temper tantrum if one of us gets sick and I have to cancel my trip to Baltimore, and you’ve got yourself one neurotic motherbitch to deal with.

Yeah, I think that it’s probably best to keep the Science Center a father-son activity.

Now that I think about it….I think there was a disclaimer in really small print on that sign by the penguin slide.

“WARNING:  The Penguin Slide may cause some seemingly normal women to act like motherbitches.  Proceed at your own risk.”