Here is a timeline of our weekend.

3 pm Friday: E calls to tell me he might not be able to come with us to Sesame Place for the weekend.

6 pm Friday: E calls to tell me he can PROBABLY come with us but not until 11 am on Saturday.

7 am Saturday: E calls to tell me he probably isn’t going to make it.

9 am Saturday: E calls to tell me he definitely isn’t going to make it so I should just take the kids and go. I make vague “Oh I don’t know…maybe we should just cancel…” noises but decide to go because I already paid for the hotel.

10 am Saturday: We hit the road!

10:10 am Saturday: We come home, because I forgot our season passes!

10:15 am Saturday: We re-hit the road!

10:30 am – 1:00 pm Saturday: The kids sleep almost the whole way, there’s no traffic, I only get a tiny bit lost and we make it to the park right as they open for the afternoon.

1:15 pm – 8:00 pm Saturday – Super good fun time at Sesame Place!

8:10 pm Saturday – Drive across the street to super nice hotel.

9:00 pm Saturday – Everyone is in jammies and in bed, but my migraine is horrible.

9:01 pm – 10:30 pm Saturday – Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, etc etc etc. Eventually we both coughed ourselves to sleep.

Midnight – Evan starts coughing so hard he throws up. I clean him up and get him a glass of water. He throws up into the glass of water. I get a new towel to clean him up again. He throws up again and I manage to catch it all on the towel. “Wow, nice catch Mommy!” says Evan.

12:30 am Sunday – Evan falls back asleep.

4:00 am Sunday – I wake up with my migraine pounding.

6:00 am Sunday – Caroline wakes up ready to party.

7:30 am Sunday – I decide I need a shower to relax and help my head. Caroline decides she needs to stand right outside the shower and scream.

7:40 am Sunday – I let Caroline join me in the shower so she’ll stop crying. She screams some more, rubs soap in her eyes, then tries to climb out of the tub and falls RIGHT on her chin.

7:41 – 7:42 am Sunday – Caroline bleeds on every surface in the hotel room while I frantically try to get dressed, stop the bleeding, and text my friend Kim to see if she can help me throw stuff in the car to find an emergency room.

7:45 am Sunday – Kim insists on taking Evan, I head to the nearest ER which amazingly shares a parking lot with our hotel.

8:30 am Sunday – Caroline attempts to give herself a stroke screaming her head off while the doctor gives her 3 stitches in her chin.

8:31 am Sunday – All the blood drains from my head, I start to feel hot and I ask the nurse helping me hold Caroline down if I can sit for a minute. She looks at me and says “OH MY GOD, SIT DOWN.”

8:32 am Sunday – I slump into a chair right as I lose consciousness. I wake up to a cup of water for me, apple juice for Caroline and some concerned looked medical staff.

8:40 am – 9:00 am Sunday – Caroline and I snuggle on the hospital bed until we both feel better, then head back to the hotel.

9:30 am Sunday – Caroline and I get some breakfast while Evan swims in the pool with Kim and her boys.

10:00 am Sunday – I decide we won’t be sticking around to do more Sesame Place and we head home.

2:00 pm Sunday – Home. Mickey Mouse on TV. I take 3 Excedrin and lie on the couch.

3:30 pm Sunday – E gets home and orders pizza. I basically give up on parenting and let the kids run wild.

7:00 pm Sunday – BED.

Basically, it was like a nightmare wrapped in a puke-covered towel, covered in screaming.

Except that really…it wasn’t that bad. The drive to Sesame was nice and easy. We were all dressed warmly and no one was whiny. The park wasn’t very busy and the kids got to ride lots of rides and see plenty of characters. We got to hang out with Kim and her mom and her wonderful boys. Even though we were all cough-y, Evan slept through my coughing and Caroline slept through Evan’s puking. Evan went right back to sleep after he got sick. No one complained to the hotel about our noise levels. Caroline handled her injury really well and didn’t seem to be in a lot of pain. The ER was so close, almost empty and everyone was super nice. The doctor took one look at Caroline, said “Yep, stitches” and immediately got the nurse in to get stuff started. She’ll be better by Friday and have her stitches out before her birthday party. She won’t have a big ugly scar.  I didn’t hurt myself fainting. Thanks to my awesome friend Kim, Evan got to swim and have fun with his friends instead of spend the morning in the ER with me. Our drive home was pleasant and easy and traffic-free. I got pizza for dinner.

So in the end, despite the various…disasters, we had a nice weekend. The kids had fun. Caroline has totally forgotten her chin. I didn’t freak out. It didn’t scare me into never leaving the house again. On Monday, I packed up the kids and drove 45 minutes to a super-awesome kids museum. Then we ate lunch in a sit-down restaurant with friends. We had a lovely day and I already think the whole thing is funny.

It sort of feels like a win, which is something pre-kid Suzanne would NEVER call a weekend that involved cleaning up so many other people’s bodily fluids. Motherhood is crazy.

I have pretty much never been gladder a week was over. We are never getting back together, Week 109. Like, ever.

Sunday:

Football!!!! Oh wait…zzzzzzzz.

First non-screaming bath time in a week. Good thing I stopped using acid to wash her instead of water (Note: no acid was actually used)

I mostly take photos so I can play with Photoshop.

Monday:

Thanksgiving leftovers on my poor swollen face parts.

Couch potatoes

One day, this will be dining room curtains

Tuesday:

Evan made that thing at preschool and apparently it’s Caroline’s new BFF

Snooooooooow!

Catching snowflakes on her tongue. From inside the house. YOU argue with her.

Wednesday:

Insisting that it’s time to build a snowman

Good dog

Help, I’m being buried in crap you insist on buying at Target even though you know perfectly well you don’t need it!

 Thursday:

Little red goldfish hood

The house is a sparkly disaster

I don’t CARE if you like it, just wash your hair.

Friday:

Fake candles and Ikea holders = HOURS of fun

Practicing for her job as one of Santa’s Elves

Oh no, where is Caroline?! I can’t find her!!

Saturday:

Horsies!

Spinning!!

Santa!!! I know him!!

So yeah, that doesn’t actually look so bad but I assure you the 12 hours after that Santa photo were pretty miserable. A migraine, hacking coughs, throw up, stitches, another fainting spell and a four hour drive home split up among 3 people…so…I’m pretty tired. My plan is to get 10 hours of sleep tonight and jump back in to real life with both feet tomorrow. Carefully though, so no one else ends up in the ER.

Did you take iPhone photos of your week? Link up with one or several below! Please consider joining, even if you haven’t done it before – it’s really fun!

Obviously I enjoy Elmo’s World too.

I think all vacations should automatically come with one at-home recovery day, where no one is expected to do anything but the bare minimum of feeding/clothing themselves/dependents and lying on the couch checking email is a perfectly good way to spend 6 hours. Unfortunately, despite making wise choices before we went away for the weekend (all the dishes were clean! all the laundry was put away! the toilet bowls were scrubbed!) I’m already behind on my to-do list for the week so I’m wearing my running shoes and blast through these dirty clothes and floors while the kids fall asleep sitting up watching Disney Jr. Caroline begged for a nap starting at 11 am and has been asleep for 3 hours already. I’m going to throw dinner at them at 6 and then crash for the night by 8. (I feel even worse for my husband, who has duty today into tomorrow and gets ZERO couch-sitting-email-checking time – at least at home I don’t have to wear real pants.)

We had a great weekend at Sesame Place. The ratio of 4 grown ups to 2 kids is MUCH more relaxing that the other way around. Caroline realized Elmo probably wasn’t going to try to eat her and loved every character, every show and every ride. The weather was glorious – 60 on Saturday and close to 70 on Sunday.

But, oh guys, it was so so so so SO crowded. I wasn’t prepared for quite so many people. Large groups of people suck, since statistically speaking you are bound to run into more Jerky McJerkfaces the bigger the group gets. It’s science: Out of 20 people, maybe 1 is the kind of self-entitled a-hole who thinks cutting in line in front of preschoolers is cool. So if you have 40 people, 2 of them are a-holes. In a super crowded amusement park where everyone is tired and wrangling toddlers and there is absolutely no beer, that number soars to approximately 17 bazillionteen. The park wasn’t prepared for that many people – let alone that many jerks – so by the end of Sunday we were glad all the “fun stuff” (tm Evan) was over and we could go home where there were no lines to ride the King Sized Magical Bed To Sleepytimes.

Although on the way out I added Christmas to our season passes so obviously it wasn’t TOO traumatic of an experience. Maybe I’ll knit us all matching wool hats and we’ll plan to go when it’s freezing and miserable so we won’t have to wait in so many lines.

Caroline’s reaction to the line at the spinning teacups

Since I have only been to Sesame Place this one time (two days over one weekend) I am not really in a place to make generalizations or give advice but that’s not really going to stop me. I got a lot of great tips from Kim, who’s an expert, and learned a lot just by being there. My best advice is “Don’t go on what was probably the busiest day at the park ever.” It was REALLY crowded on Friday, which we weren’t expecting (we figured it would be pack Saturday). By the time we got in the gates at 10:15 am there were long lines for everything. So I guess that’s tip number 1 – if you’re going in the crowded summer season, get there a good half hour before the gates open, get in line, use that time to put sunscreen on everyone and give them a morning tantrum-preventing snack.

Two moms, four kids, and no major problems. We deserve medals.

His face was like this all day

Kim and JD enjoying a ride

Luckily the kids were all in a good mood and we managed to get sunscreened up and onto the cool raft waterslide before anyone melted down. But that was the end for Caroline. She DID NOT CARE FOR the water rides and let everyone within a 100 mile radius know it. I wasn’t expecting that – she loves the pool and the lake and the boat. It made chasing Evan through the giant water playground no fun for anyone. Thank goodness he wasn’t the least bit scared…and that the whole place is BUILT for 3 year olds. I think the only thing he needed an adult for was the big (BIG!) roller coaster. Thank God Kim was willing to take Caroline duty so Evan didn’t miss stuff. That’s tip number 2 – Bring one grown up per kid if at all possible. Or have two kids who like doing all the things.

Evan and I are the ones in that last car

A really nice person gave me their Magic Passes at about 4 pm on Friday – it meant 2 of us could skip to the front of any line as many times as we wanted. They cost $30 a piece so it was super, super amazing. The employees didn’t mind if we passed them back and forth so we got to ride everything the kids wanted even though it was crowded.

Boys having fun

We made poor Caroline do water stuff all morning and then tried to get lunch. Here’s tip number 3 – the food isn’t very good and you are allowed to bring in snacks and small coolers so DO THAT. The line was really long, wrangling trays and strollers is tough, and making hungry kids stand in line is pretty much torture for everyone. Next time we’re going to spring for the character lunch, where at least there isn’t a huge line for food, even if I will have to feed Caroline under the table where Telly Monster won’t scare the crap out of her.

Unimpressed

Climber

After lunch we ran back to the car to change, grab snacks and pick up our cameras (we left them safe in the car instead of under the stroller during the wet half of the day). Kim’s kids napped, mine sort of napped, we did rides on the dry side and saw the parade twice. (The night version is cooler.) We stayed until they threw us out at 9 pm and stayed in a hotel so we could do it again on Saturday.

We watched the light parade from the curb of the fake Sesame Street.

Totally worth the $10.

There are only a few floats, but they’re very cool at night and the singing and dancing is fun.

OK, so I realize I’m making it sound like we didn’t have a good time, which is totally wrong. We had a GREAT time. Evan had the best time, I had the second best time, Caroline did not die. She wasn’t happy about the water, she didn’t like most of the shows, and she was a little scared of the characters. But she loved Elmo’s World and the parade and her stuffed Elmo and the carousel. I think she’s going to hate it probably one more time and then warm up.

Elmo’s World

Front row seats

Seriously, FRONT ROW (Caroline wasn’t a fan.)

I loved all of it. I can’t imagine someone my age who wouldn’t love it – it’s Sesame Street! I grew up on Cookie Monster and Big Bird. Even though they’ve added new monsters and updated a little bit it is still very classic and I didn’t feel like my childhood was being betrayed in any way (which yes, is something I was genuinely worried about). We will definitely being going back. Soon. Before Halloween, that’s for sure.

The little-kid part of the park was empty right after opening on Saturday.

I was pretty sure he was never getting off this one.

Yes, we dressed them the same on purpose.

Tip number 4 – Buy the season pass. I used my free admission for military dependents on Friday which was nice, because we could see if we liked it. Saturday I bought two season passes – one at the basic level and one at the mid-level, which comes with lots of great benefits (it’s good the rest of 2012 and all of 2013). I put the fancier pass in Evan’s name, since he’s a kid he has to have a grown up come with him so I get the benefits too (Kim recommended it and the lady at the ticket counter confirmed that’s what most people do).  Free parking, 30% discount on food and souvenirs, early admission to at least one of the shows, and a chance to go backstage at the parade and meet ALL the characters. All of them. Even on a really busy weekend the backstage thing was super cool and we got to meet and take pictures with every single character.

Backstage before the parade

Peeking at Bert and Ernie

Evan doesn’t understand how to pose with the characters

Zoe!

And the characters are GREAT. They costumes are extremely well done. They were very clean and soft, especially considering it was 90 degrees and their job is to hug dirty, sticky toddlers all day. You can’t see the people inside them at all, even up close, and they are very very very good with the kids. Patient and polite and willing to go above and beyond to help get a good picture. I never felt like they were rushing us to go away so they could get to the next kid. They handled a crying Caroline just as well as they handled an overenthusiastic hugger Evan. The park certainly isn’t Disney-levels of magical or clean but the characters are EVERYTHING you would expect from the Sesame Workshop.

Murray worked really hard to get this photos, convincing Evan to come sit on the bench when he wouldn’t stand next to him.

Prairie Dawn is my favorite!!!

I might have gotten a little misty eyed a few times around Elmo.

Official park photo! They didn’t push them on you but it was nice to have a group shot or two.

Caroline refused. I suspect in a year she’s going to be Abby Cadabby obsessed.

They do special stuff all through October for Halloween and we’re definitely going back. They also decorate for Christmas – I’m told it’s really amazing – but I’d need to upgrade our season passes (although if our next visit goes well I might book Caroline the special birthday package for December). Who’s up for a meet-up in early October?