Sesame Place: A Play in 3 Acts

Act 1: Where Are My Pants?

Yesterday afternoon we decided to hit Sesame Place for a couple of hours. A friend of ours was spending the day with her nephews, so we thought we'd join them. After T woke up from his nap, we gathered the necessary supplies: sun screen, towels, swim suits, snacks, water, passes, etc. We hopped in the car and away we went. Sesame Place is about a 20 minute drive from our house. There was also about a 15 minute wait for parking when we arrived. We finally got parked, got out our stuff and realized we left T's swim trunks sitting on the love seat at home. Oops.

So we set off to find a pair of trunks at Sesame Place. After a few stops we found a pair (which really are pretty cute), for $17. Ouch. We bought the size T should need next summer, so at least they'll last for a while. After our visit, we got back to the car when Ry realized there was a pair of T's trunks in the car from our swim lesson earlier this week. Beautiful.

Act 2: OCD is CDO When It Is Alphabetized Like It Should Be

One of T's favorite attractions is one called "Big Bird's Nest." It is a round, squishy surface with tons of squishy shapes to play with. T particularly likes to bring me different shapes and stack them up. Each time he brought me a shape, another little boy (who was probably 3ish) would come over and toss the shape back into the circle. T finally brought me a shape and stayed to "play" it. Meanwhile, the Shape Police came over and tried to throw his shape back in the circle. I had a good 5 minute conversation with this little person about how it was OK for the shape to be outside the circle for a little while. He disagreed vehemently. He spent 5 minutes convincing me that the shape didn't belong outside the circle and he had to toss it back it. He ended up winning the argument when T left to play with something else and I let him throw the square back into the circle. It's a good thing too, because I think his little head was about to explode.

Act 3: The Fun-Sapping Troll

The Fun Police was on patrol at Big Bird's Nest yesterday. Chris, the Fun-Sapping Troll was manning the Nest. T kept trying to explore an area under the stairs. As far as I could tell, there was nothing sharp, dangerous or icky there, so I let him. Patrolman Chris went over and herded T back into the circle. OK, I thought, maybe he's worried that no one is actively watching T. So I went over and stood a couple of feet from T as he explored this area. Chris Troll again (without saying a word to me) came over and herded T back into the circle. Ogreman then tromped over to a little girl and yelled at her for wearing shoes inside the circle. I mean yelled, not raised his voice. Our friend Schmucky then stood watch over the nest, glowering at all the happy little children. The Asshat's final act was to scream at a couple of kids who were wrestling on the circle. Both were laughing, and no one's parents were getting involved. "This Is Sesame Place" quoth Chris, the Demon Goblin, "No Fun Allowed!"