Holiday Road

Vacationing with your kids can be a lot of fun. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, but work can still be fun.

We had the audacity to take our girls, 3, 6, and 9 years old to supper in the Amana Colonies one night. I’m still not entirely convinced that they’re old enough to appreciate the historical or cultural significance of the experience.

“This place is SO awesome!” declared the three year old when we first entered, but it wasn’t long before she was dancing beside her chair and trying to escape our table to wander around to other people’s tables. This particular Amana establishment made things fresh and from scratch, this isn’t quick enough for any 3 year old attention span, believe me.

Our six year old was sulking. She’d enjoyed the Children’s Museum at the Coralville Mall so much that she was crushed that we had left the Iowa City vicinity. Our nine year old was sentimental about the restaurant’s music, since it reminded her of their late great-grandfather’s favorite radio show, Polka Party.

But none of them enjoyed the sweet sour kraut or the pickled ham appetizers. Guess it was a good thing that we ordered the chicken rather than knackwurst.

Middle children have it rough. Our six year old was particularly vexed when she found out that instead of another museum or the living history museum in Des Moines, we’d have to push on to get home in time for her older sister’s softball game. Amazing how one phone call to check the schedule changed it from “the best week in my entire life,” to “the worst summer EVER!” My hope is that if she gets the drama out of her system now, adolescence will go pretty smoothly. Right?

Ah, but the most fun was closest to home, when the circus came to Denison. We expectations as low as we could; “I don’t know, we’ll see… it depends on what’s going on that day… we’ll have to see how much it costs… so long as we don’t have anything else going on… as long as neither of you have ball games…you know, the fairgrounds were under a lot of water just last week…” and of course, “I heard from someone who went last year that it wasn’t really that good.”

In spite of our best efforts, the six year old was more wound up about the circus than she is on Christmas Eve. Asking when we were going every ten minutes, telling everyone that we were going etc. etc.

Finally the time had come. Six and Nine scurried upstairs to rouse Three from her nap by excitedly announcing that it was time to go to the circus. This evoked absolute TERROR in the three year old. I don’t remember her throwing such a fit. There was no way that she was going to this circus. She insisted that I stay home with her. The problem, an irrational fear of clowns. She’s three, she hasn’t read any Steven King novels, she’d never even seen a clown before in her short life. Somehow I calmed her down and reasoned enough with her to convince her to come with us, promising that I’d protect her and that there would probably be animals.

The clown was no threat. There was only one. He didn’t have crazy hair or even a face full of white makeup. Heck, he couldn’t have been more than twelve years old himself. It was a “family” circus after all.

Six year old won a balloon, making it “the greatest day of her life.” Then there was the elephant ride afterward. Six year old wanted it most, and Three year old was the most apprehensive. Nine year old was an old hand at this sort of thing because she’d already ridden one back in preschool.

Of course once we mounted the huge beast, things changed. Let me tell you, for adults, elephants aren’t nearly as comfortable as horses, especially if you’re stuck on the tail bone because three little kids got to sit in front of you. The three year old warmed up to it right away, but the six year old was in a sheer panic the while ride, sort of like her father is when I go on roller coasters.

This, along with the denial of an additional pony ride turned the experience into “the worst day of my life, EVER.”