Elena is out of town. The boys are off doing their own things. And Maren is sleeping over at her aunt’s house. So after we drop Maren off, Emma is very sad. So I ask her what she wants to do that would be fun and she says she wants to go to the park.

As we get in the car and it starts up, I am reminded by the car’s temperature gauge that it is 94 degrees outside. I don’t want to go sit at the park - it’s too hot! So as we are driving away we pass a McDonald’s. Whoa! They have a playground! So I flip a U-turn and go back. Emma says “Is this the park?”, “No Emma… this is McDonald’s”, “McDonald’s! I love McDonald’s!”. I rule. I am the best Dad in the whole world.

The following are a collection of different events that all occurred during this McDonald’s excursion. I had to blog about them — it just made me laugh the whole time.

• We order the obligatory Happy Meal, of course. It came with a Hello Kitty toy. Score one for Dad… Hello Kitty is so cute!
• After consuming only 3 fries, Emma asks if she can go play. I tell her she has to eat her 4 chicken nuggets first.
• After consuming 2 more fries, Emma asks if she can play with the Hello Kitty toy. I tell her not until after she is done playing in the playground. She proceeds to get up from the table to go play. I tell her she needs to eat her chicken nuggets first.
• Emma slowly consumes a chicken nugget as she watches the other kids playing. Then a light goes off in her head, “I can eat the chicken nugget and play at the same time”, she thinks. As she gets up from table I ask her to sit down. “But I have the chicken nugget Dad!”. “Yes Emma, but you need to eat two more first”.
• Loud screaming of “Mom Mom” is suddenly heard from the upper catacombs of the play structure. The lady next to me answers back. And then, so everyone inside (and probably outside) the restaurant can here, the little voice yells “Mommy I’ve got to pee and I can’t find my way out!”. Mom gets up, sticks the top half of her body into the play structure and begins to essentially play a game of Marco Polo with her child. And in a few minutes the child emerges and a mad dash to the restroom is made.
• Emma finishes her first chicken nugget, gulps down chocolate milk, and takes off. “I’m done with my chicken Dad!”. “Wait Emma! You still have to eat one more!”. With a look of disgust, and her hands on her hips, she turns around and says “We can just take it home Dad!”. Nope… I made her sit down and eat again. (Notice that we are now down to just eating a total of 2 nuggets, instead of the original 4.)
• Emma slowly eats another nugget until there is about half of it left. Then she stuffs the entire rest of it into her mouth, jumps down from the table and takes off. I guess she did eat two, right?
• About every two or three minutes she returns to the table to gulp chocolate milk. By the time all of this is finished, she will be sporting a nice brown chocolate milk goatee (as seen in the picture).
• Another mom walks in and begins yelling for her daughter, whose name is apparently Serenity, that it is time to go. The girl answers from high up in the catacombs that she doesn’t want to go and the mom begins repeating the phrase “Serenity… now!” I begin to have flashbacks of a Seinfeld episode with George’s Dad yelling “Serenity Now!” and I have to turn around because I can’t stop laughing to myself.
• Time to go. The standard countdown negotiation begins between parent and child with me playing the part of the parent, and Emma, the part of the child. We start at “let’s go now” and before I realize it, I have been negotiated into 3 more minutes.
• Seven or eight minutes pass and I say its time to go. Emma, apparently having no concept of time, proceeds to argue with me from the high in the catacombs that it hasn’t been three minutes yet.
• Finally I convince her it is time to go. We pack up and head towards the door. The great and all knowing McDonald’s establishment is not stupid. Near the door there is a display of all the currently possible Happy Meal toys. Brilliant placement for children coming into the restaurant so that they will force their parents to buy a Happy Meal (worked on me). But it also backfires, because the kids also see it as they’re leaving and wonder “why didn’t I get that toy”.
• As we’re driving home I ask Emma if she had fun. “Yes!” she says. Again… I am the best Dad in the world!
• As I turn to pull onto our street Emma starts crying saying “No Dad!”. “What’s the matter, Emma?”, “I want to go to the park!”. I try to explain that we went to McDonald’s instead and it had a playground. She then begins to rattle off all of the things that are apparently qualifications for a place to be a park. It seems that monkey bars, swings, two slides, and dirt are required for a place to be considered a park.

There you go. It sounds like it might have been frustrating, but in actuality I found it all very funny. Hence the blog post. Now I’ve just got to see if I can ever convince her it is time for bed.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Family Life, Funny. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.