I'm Going To Merry You!

And so we rode the indoor merry-go-round at Jumps 'n' Jiggles no less than sixty-three times that day. Included in the boys' admission price of $4.00 each was UNLIMITED merry-go-round rides, which sounds like the deal of a century but is actually a quite hilarious joke on the parents if you really stop and think about it.

This is what we looked like the first time we rode the merry-go-round. 

And this is what we looked like three hours later.

Clearly, this isn't accurate.  There was no alcohol involved and the pumpkins portraying Andy and Alex show signs of queasiness, which was not the case.  They could have ridden that merry-go-round forever and ever, off into the sunset and forward into puberty.  I might have been okay with this for Andy, since he's old enough to ride alone... but even with me holding onto Alex, my little one still almost slipped off his pony a couple of times (oops).  Just call me Butter Fingers!

But the unending merry-go-round is not the most memorable part of that day.  Somehow able to drive through my dizziness, I got us home and put Alex straight down for his nap.  There sure was a lot of fussing, crying, and panicky-type noises coming from behind that bedroom door for the duration of nap time (two hours), but my mantra has always been that what happens at nap time stays at nap time.  Actually, I just made that mantra up now.  What I really mean is that I try not to open that door at all when Alex is supposed to be napping because as far as he's concerned, the whole universe grinds to a halt between one and three and there ain't nobody around to hear your cries for help so you might as well just close your damn eyes.

The day of the merry-go-round, however, I should have opened that door at some point before the official end of nap time, because when I finally did, it was evident that Alex had not closed his eyes for a single second, let alone lay down, let alone SIT down.  He was completely naked, having shed all of his clothes and tossed them overboard out of his crib.  Then, from what I could logically piece together, he had made the fatal error- while naked with no diaper- of peeing in one corner of his crib.  Having done this, he went into a tizzy and proceeded to toss out all of his other crib possessions so that they wouldn't also get wet. Blankies, pillow, Mumma the monkey, Teddy the teddy- all of them were heaved out in a state of hysteria. Having emptied out his crib in a satisfactory fashion, he then realized what a pickle he was in, and it was clear that Alex had spent over an hour just standing around butt naked in his crib waiting for me to come get him.  

When I finally opened that door, he was so relieved, his overtired, bloodshot eyes burst into tears, and he gestured crazily behind him, indicated the pee and the items thrown out onto the floor, including his dry, unused diaper, which had obviously taunted him like mad for close to 120 minutes.

I felt bad for the kid, but I also thought it was pretty hilarious.  And do I blame the merry-go-round? Sure, sort of.   Those things scramble your brain.