Chuck E. Cheese

On Wednesday, we were confident that Henry would sleep in b/c he stayed up late. He had other plans. He was up at 6:45AM and bright-eyed. On Wednesday afternoon, we decided to make Henry's dreams come true and take him to Chuck E. Cheese, which is on the far other side of town. Henry has been requesting Chuck E. Cheese for months, thanks to the commercials placed around Sponge Bob. He'd never been to Chuck E. Cheese, but through the magic of TV, he knew that it was the place for him. We got the kids in the car but didn't tell them where we were going.

Once we arrived in the parking lot, we didn't tell Henry where we were. As we approached the doors, Henry looked up at the sign. I asked him where we were. And he knew.

We had a fantastic time. The restaurant was the ultimate set up for toddlers. As we walked into the building, we had to get ourselves and the kids stamped with numbers that connected us with them. And upon check out, the staff make sure that adults don't go walking off with someone else's kids based on those stamps. Very, very nice. The staff also placed a huge hand sanitizer dispense at the entrance. Yes!

The building was packed with games, many of which were appropriate for toddlers. There were tons of rides (similar to the toy horses parked in front of grocery stories) that Miss R loves to do. For Henry, there was a climbing set up like the one's that they have at McDonald's, but this one was even longer. He was so excited. And he made a friend while crawling through the tunnels. He and his friend pretended that monsters were chasing them. I'm amazed and pleased at just how easily Henry makes new friends. There were various ticket games that didn't take much skill to get tickets. The tokens were reasonably priced. The one downsize to Chuck E. Cheese is the pizza...which Jeff didn't really consider pizza. It was a bit expensive for the quality, but given how cool the restaurant was overall, that defect can certainly be overlooked.















We did encounter problems toward the end of our perfect family evening. When we'd stayed there about 3 hours, we decided that it was time to go home. It was, afterall, past 8:30PM. The kids had turned in their tickets and the nice person behind the counter gave them extra cool prizes that would have cost more than the tickets they turned in...two stuff animal Chuck E. Cheese toys. We made our way to the car and Henry did a classic toddler protest, which involved making his body go rigid and then flailing his arms about. Our departure was facilitated by the fact that he really needed a diaper change.

As I was changing him in the back of the car, he switched up tactics and asked "Where are we going to go next?" He truly is Party All the Time Henry. I vow to send him to a college that doesn't have a Greek system!

He announced that it was time to go to McDonald's. He'd seen one on the way. As we passed it, he said. "I want to go to McDonald's. Turn the car around!"

This morning (Thursday), Jeff had a 7AM conference call. The kids decided to get up early again. Sigh. Jeff made them a picnic in our bedroom so that they'd be as far from the conference call as possible. I caught Miss R feeding her waffle to Lily. When I let Roger into the room, Henry said, "Lily is Roger's best friend. Roger, do you want to start the party?"

As we got the kids into the car for our daycare drop off, I asked Jeff if he wanted a Hard Eggs Night (one of the breakfast sandwiches from the Glass Onion). Henry announced, "I want a Hard Eggs Night." I asked, "You want a Hard Eggs Night?" Then he said, "No, I want a No Yoko" (which is what I always order. He repeated, "I want a No Yoko from the Glass Onion." That he put those items in the context of the Glass Onion floors me.

The drop off was fine. No problems. It was particularly easy as Baby A had been picked up by the CPS driving service at 8:20AM.