McDonalds, Target and Discovery Place, Oh My!

On Sunday morning, after dropping Julie for work at Meck (Mecklenburg Community Church), I took the kids to McDonalds to eat breakfast and play a little before we went to the 9am service at church. The plan was, Zack takes Zoe and Zane into the Play Place while I order the food. Mistake; mine.

One small problem, the Play Place was locked. Immediately a look of concern washes over Zach's face. See Zach is pretty easy going, as long as he know the plans well in advance. He does not do so well though, when the plans change at the last moment. I told him to stay calm, I would check with one of the workers. Turns out they had just forgotten to unlock the door that morning, no problem ... except she decided to take my order before unlocking the door. Mistake; hers. She definitely doesn't know my kids. By the time the words Large Coffee came out of my mouth, she was practically throwing the keys at one of her coworkers so that he could unlock the door. Why, you ask (if you are asking that, then you haven't met my kids either). Zoe and Zane had decided to form a tag team against the door, trying to force it open. They were both using all of their might to both push and pull the door open (2 year-olds aren't able to read the word push, so they cover their bases). The pushing though was accompanied by loud grunts, moans, maybe a scream or two and chants of the word "Open". I have to wonder if they really thought that they would open the door or if they knew the commotion would expedite the process.

Once inside, shoes were removed and Zach helped Zoe and Zane up the series of levels toward the slides. One problem. To get to the slides the children must pass through a tunnel made out of a cargo net material that is perched about 12ft. off of the ground. Zach flew across. Zane hesitated, but made his way over. Zoe ...well Zoe cried ... then she screamed. See, she was too scared to go across the net, but also too scared to go back down the platforms to the ground. She was paralyzed with fear, yelling for me out of a porthole window built into the side of a yellow tunnel. Luckily I had nothing else to do at the moment but to climb up a claustrophobic passageway to rescue my little princess. Oh wait ... I was trying to get the breakfast divvied out for the kids because at this point we had 15 minutes to eat, get shoes on, get in the car and make it back to church ... oh, and Zadie was screaming her head off.

But all turned out well, the girl was saved, the baby was soothed, the children were fed and we made it to church ... almost on time (but I think I read somewhere that we will be forgiven for that).

Church was good, the children had fun, I enjoyed the message and music. Now we were off to Target for some last minute Valentines Day shopping ... Mistake; mine.

To Be Continued...