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Catch-up: Weekend of Firsts, Part 1
I did a long voice post about this because I suspected that it would be hard to get it written up. And I was right.
I took some decent pictures of part of the weekend, but it's just too much work to sort through them all and stick them up on the server right now. Perhaps I'll do that later.
Teri was at the shelter on Saturday, so I took Sebastian to the annual Children's Spring Festival at Dean College in Franklin MA. We'd gone there the year before and had a lot of fun. This year was no different; we walked around, Sebastian spent a lot of time in a couple of those inflated moon-walk jumping things, and I repeatedly tried to get him to take a pony ride. But no matter how much I cajoled him, he simply refused to get on, or even near, a pony. Even though some of them were quite small.
He did get excited when he saw a display of small animals, though.
(I resist lj-cuts, because I believe that people often don't bother to read the whole post - and goodness knows few enough people read this thing anyway - but here's an lj-cut nonetheless.)
A month or two ago we'd stopped at a traveling petting zoo that had been set up in the parking lot of a Shaw's supermarket in Woonsocket, but that had been a sad experience for Teri and me; the animals were obviously neglected, with sores and bald patches. One cat-like creature simply sat there on the concrete, suffering (it was screened away so that you couldn't pat it).
These animals were different. There was a small, big-eared fox of some kind that frantically dashed back and forth inside a chicken-wire coop; a pair of chinchillas that spent most of the time on top of each other, I think out of fear; a skink, which moved very little; two ferrets, which delighted Sebastian (a friend of his has a couple of ferrets, and Sebastian made sure that everyone in the surrounding area knew that); a hedgehog that never moved at all nor showed its head, so it looked very much like a scrubbing pad for dishes; and a pair of miniature goats.
We spent a good deal of time looking at the animals. After that, more moon-bouncing, and then Sebastian decorated a frisbee and made a medal for Teri - he wrote "MOM" on each of them himself. The letters were a bit shaky, but quite legible.
In the meantime my head was burning to a crisp in the sun. It had been a cloudy day when we'd gotten out of the car, so I'd left my hat behind; but soon after we'd gotten to the festival the sun came out with a vengeance. I tried to shade my head with my arms, but it was useless.
Just before we left to get Teri Sebastian begged to decorate a cupcake, so we did that, piling it high with rainbow-colored sprinkles (or "jimmies" as we call them in Massachusetts), different-colored sugar crystals including a lovely shade of lavender, and M&Ms. Then we headed back to the car.
We picked up Teri, went home for a few minutes, and then hit the road again. The son of a friend had graduated from college, so we were going to stop at the party for a while and then later try a new restaurant that I'd heard of from a barber.
The party was being held at a senior center; an odd place, off in the woods a bit and rather nice (note: I am still suffering from the Zelig effect. It's far too obvious that I've been re-reading the Narnia books, and it has badly infected my writing style). Sebastian got shy, and then rambunctious; he wouldn't stay inside, so I had to play outside with him on the grass.
He ran around like a little maniac. We pretended that he was Spider-Man, his stuffed cat Frisco was Spider-Cat, and that I was the super-villain: Rhino. There was lots of chasing around and laughing.
Eventually we left the party and headed over for dinner to the Red Robin in Millbury. The woman who did my last haircut had told me about it; she said that they had all different sorts of hamburgers, and unlimited fries. That made me prick up my ears; I'd never heard of anything like that before.
It turned out that Red Robin was a chain of family restaurants. I can only guess that they're expanding into the New England area, because I'd never heard of them before; there are only two in Massachusetts, and none in Rhode Island.
When we stepped into the restaurant, Teri and I were both a bit taken aback. It seemed like a children's funhouse. There were a lot of balloons floating by the ceiling near the entrance, bright colors everywhere, a TV built into the floor itself, and large statues of the restaurant mascot.
It was an interesting place. Although it seemed clearly aimed at families and children, I noticed that there was also a bar in the restaurant. I also saw that a nearby couple had ordered the onion ring appetizer. They were the huge beer-batter type of onion ring. They smelled great, and were served in a way I'd never seen before: stacked up on a spike.
But our own meals were a bit disappointing. The burgers weren't bad, but they weren't anything to write home about, either; on a scale of 1-10, I'd give them a 5. Absolutely unmemorable. The fries were steak fries, a little mealy and undercooked. They'd also been sprinkled with "Red Robin seasoning", which seemed to be nothing more than seasoned salt with an overly-heavy admixture of chili powder. Teri ordered a freckled lemonade, and it came in a really cool-looking glass, but the lemonade itself was so nasty that she had them bring her a Coke instead. I'd ordered a chocolate milkshake, something I don't normally do, and it too was a disappointment. The chocolate flavor was much too strong and sweet. As far as I can tell they simply used Hershey's chocolate syrup, about twice as much as they should have.
During dinner Sebastian climbed down under the table and got out of the booth. He was clearly in the mood for mischief. And before we knew it he'd run away. I jumped up and followed him as he made a grand circuit of the establishment; I couldn't help laughing as I chased him through the bar, much to the amusement of the patrons. Eventually he ended up back by our booth again, and Teri grabbed him.
A few minutes later he got out of the booth again and went on the run once more. "Your turn, dear", I said to Teri. As she chased him, I finished my dinner.
They were gone a long time. When they finally came back, I saw instantly from their expressions that something was very wrong. Sebastian, it turned out, had turned left rather than right after he went through the bar, and had actually left the restaurant and gone outside. Teri had been circling around to catch him as he left the bar, and had lost sight of him. So he'd simply gone out the door and run down the sidewalk. By the time Teri saw him, he was some distance away. Apparently, he never even looked back to see if she was following him.
This was extremely bad, for two reasons. One is that it's absolutely unacceptable for Sebastian to run away like that in public; I'm glad that he had the sense to stay on the sidewalk, but he is NOT old enough to be trusted outside alone.
The other problem was that Teri was absolutely furious. A number of extreme punishments were doled out immediately, and Sebastian broke out sobbing. We paid the bill and left as quickly as we could.
It was not a pleasant ride home, although the sky was dramatic - half storm clouds, half clear, with a setting sun - and a huge rainbow covered a large area of the horizon ahead of us for the entire trip home. Teri had told Sebastian that we would not be taking him to see the miniature trains the next day, and he was hysterical. I was trying to put in a few words of moderation, but Teri was in no mood to listen.
I should explain that I wasn't trying to get her to go easy on him; nor was I failing to take his behavior seriously. For all that I'm sometimes accused of being the "easy" parent, of being a lax disciplinarian, I truly believe that I'm stricter with him than Teri is, in many ways. But I could see disaster in this punishment.
Around last Christmas Sebastian had been quite naughty. Come to think of it, he'd run away. And as a punishment we'd taken away his Christmas trip to Edaville.
That didn't work out, though. We'd already planned the trip with my parents and my brother and his family. Cancelling it screwed up everyone's plans, and punished those who didn't deserve it. So we had to relent and let him go. At the time I'd replaced the punishment with a loss of TV privileges.
Teri's mother was the one who'd told us about the miniature train event, and she was going with us. I was pretty sure that we wouldn't be able to cancel on her at this late date. Later that night, I gently pointed this out to Teri. Fortunately by then she'd calmed down a bit. So Sebastian lost TV for at least three days -I pushed for a week, but wasn't able to convince Teri - instead, and the next day we went to the miniature trains.
But this has already become much longer than I expected, so I'll continue it later, in part 2.
I took some decent pictures of part of the weekend, but it's just too much work to sort through them all and stick them up on the server right now. Perhaps I'll do that later.
Teri was at the shelter on Saturday, so I took Sebastian to the annual Children's Spring Festival at Dean College in Franklin MA. We'd gone there the year before and had a lot of fun. This year was no different; we walked around, Sebastian spent a lot of time in a couple of those inflated moon-walk jumping things, and I repeatedly tried to get him to take a pony ride. But no matter how much I cajoled him, he simply refused to get on, or even near, a pony. Even though some of them were quite small.
He did get excited when he saw a display of small animals, though.
(I resist lj-cuts, because I believe that people often don't bother to read the whole post - and goodness knows few enough people read this thing anyway - but here's an lj-cut nonetheless.)
A month or two ago we'd stopped at a traveling petting zoo that had been set up in the parking lot of a Shaw's supermarket in Woonsocket, but that had been a sad experience for Teri and me; the animals were obviously neglected, with sores and bald patches. One cat-like creature simply sat there on the concrete, suffering (it was screened away so that you couldn't pat it).
These animals were different. There was a small, big-eared fox of some kind that frantically dashed back and forth inside a chicken-wire coop; a pair of chinchillas that spent most of the time on top of each other, I think out of fear; a skink, which moved very little; two ferrets, which delighted Sebastian (a friend of his has a couple of ferrets, and Sebastian made sure that everyone in the surrounding area knew that); a hedgehog that never moved at all nor showed its head, so it looked very much like a scrubbing pad for dishes; and a pair of miniature goats.
We spent a good deal of time looking at the animals. After that, more moon-bouncing, and then Sebastian decorated a frisbee and made a medal for Teri - he wrote "MOM" on each of them himself. The letters were a bit shaky, but quite legible.
In the meantime my head was burning to a crisp in the sun. It had been a cloudy day when we'd gotten out of the car, so I'd left my hat behind; but soon after we'd gotten to the festival the sun came out with a vengeance. I tried to shade my head with my arms, but it was useless.
Just before we left to get Teri Sebastian begged to decorate a cupcake, so we did that, piling it high with rainbow-colored sprinkles (or "jimmies" as we call them in Massachusetts), different-colored sugar crystals including a lovely shade of lavender, and M&Ms. Then we headed back to the car.
We picked up Teri, went home for a few minutes, and then hit the road again. The son of a friend had graduated from college, so we were going to stop at the party for a while and then later try a new restaurant that I'd heard of from a barber.
The party was being held at a senior center; an odd place, off in the woods a bit and rather nice (note: I am still suffering from the Zelig effect. It's far too obvious that I've been re-reading the Narnia books, and it has badly infected my writing style). Sebastian got shy, and then rambunctious; he wouldn't stay inside, so I had to play outside with him on the grass.
He ran around like a little maniac. We pretended that he was Spider-Man, his stuffed cat Frisco was Spider-Cat, and that I was the super-villain: Rhino. There was lots of chasing around and laughing.
Eventually we left the party and headed over for dinner to the Red Robin in Millbury. The woman who did my last haircut had told me about it; she said that they had all different sorts of hamburgers, and unlimited fries. That made me prick up my ears; I'd never heard of anything like that before.
It turned out that Red Robin was a chain of family restaurants. I can only guess that they're expanding into the New England area, because I'd never heard of them before; there are only two in Massachusetts, and none in Rhode Island.
When we stepped into the restaurant, Teri and I were both a bit taken aback. It seemed like a children's funhouse. There were a lot of balloons floating by the ceiling near the entrance, bright colors everywhere, a TV built into the floor itself, and large statues of the restaurant mascot.
It was an interesting place. Although it seemed clearly aimed at families and children, I noticed that there was also a bar in the restaurant. I also saw that a nearby couple had ordered the onion ring appetizer. They were the huge beer-batter type of onion ring. They smelled great, and were served in a way I'd never seen before: stacked up on a spike.
But our own meals were a bit disappointing. The burgers weren't bad, but they weren't anything to write home about, either; on a scale of 1-10, I'd give them a 5. Absolutely unmemorable. The fries were steak fries, a little mealy and undercooked. They'd also been sprinkled with "Red Robin seasoning", which seemed to be nothing more than seasoned salt with an overly-heavy admixture of chili powder. Teri ordered a freckled lemonade, and it came in a really cool-looking glass, but the lemonade itself was so nasty that she had them bring her a Coke instead. I'd ordered a chocolate milkshake, something I don't normally do, and it too was a disappointment. The chocolate flavor was much too strong and sweet. As far as I can tell they simply used Hershey's chocolate syrup, about twice as much as they should have.
During dinner Sebastian climbed down under the table and got out of the booth. He was clearly in the mood for mischief. And before we knew it he'd run away. I jumped up and followed him as he made a grand circuit of the establishment; I couldn't help laughing as I chased him through the bar, much to the amusement of the patrons. Eventually he ended up back by our booth again, and Teri grabbed him.
A few minutes later he got out of the booth again and went on the run once more. "Your turn, dear", I said to Teri. As she chased him, I finished my dinner.
They were gone a long time. When they finally came back, I saw instantly from their expressions that something was very wrong. Sebastian, it turned out, had turned left rather than right after he went through the bar, and had actually left the restaurant and gone outside. Teri had been circling around to catch him as he left the bar, and had lost sight of him. So he'd simply gone out the door and run down the sidewalk. By the time Teri saw him, he was some distance away. Apparently, he never even looked back to see if she was following him.
This was extremely bad, for two reasons. One is that it's absolutely unacceptable for Sebastian to run away like that in public; I'm glad that he had the sense to stay on the sidewalk, but he is NOT old enough to be trusted outside alone.
The other problem was that Teri was absolutely furious. A number of extreme punishments were doled out immediately, and Sebastian broke out sobbing. We paid the bill and left as quickly as we could.
It was not a pleasant ride home, although the sky was dramatic - half storm clouds, half clear, with a setting sun - and a huge rainbow covered a large area of the horizon ahead of us for the entire trip home. Teri had told Sebastian that we would not be taking him to see the miniature trains the next day, and he was hysterical. I was trying to put in a few words of moderation, but Teri was in no mood to listen.
I should explain that I wasn't trying to get her to go easy on him; nor was I failing to take his behavior seriously. For all that I'm sometimes accused of being the "easy" parent, of being a lax disciplinarian, I truly believe that I'm stricter with him than Teri is, in many ways. But I could see disaster in this punishment.
Around last Christmas Sebastian had been quite naughty. Come to think of it, he'd run away. And as a punishment we'd taken away his Christmas trip to Edaville.
That didn't work out, though. We'd already planned the trip with my parents and my brother and his family. Cancelling it screwed up everyone's plans, and punished those who didn't deserve it. So we had to relent and let him go. At the time I'd replaced the punishment with a loss of TV privileges.
Teri's mother was the one who'd told us about the miniature train event, and she was going with us. I was pretty sure that we wouldn't be able to cancel on her at this late date. Later that night, I gently pointed this out to Teri. Fortunately by then she'd calmed down a bit. So Sebastian lost TV for at least three days -I pushed for a week, but wasn't able to convince Teri - instead, and the next day we went to the miniature trains.
But this has already become much longer than I expected, so I'll continue it later, in part 2.