No matter how I try, I can never fully prepare myself for the toll winter takes on me both physically and mentally.  It never seems to fail, once we pull out of March and things begin to bloom all I can do is look forward.  I think it is the right thing to do, why focus on snow, sub zero temperatures, and days where it is dark well before most people get home from work?  I really think there should be a mandatory video that people who live in cold climates have to watch in November that prepares them for the god awful thing we call winter.  This year we had a fairly mild November and December, this caused the first taste of arctic temperatures to feel like a right hook from Mike Tyson.  As January rolls on it is difficult to really put your finger on what is most miserable about winter.

Last week, as I prepared to get my oldest out the door and off to preschool, I grabbed his snow pants, boots, hat, mittens and coat.  The last time I brought him to school I didn’t put his snow gear on ahead of time and when I arrived at his classroom all the other kids were already fully snow geared up and ready to rock on out to the playground.  I wanted to ask his teachers if they were sadists, why are you making these kids go outside?  But I didn’t, I grabbed my kid’s snow gear and struggled to get all of his shit on while his teachers looked on wondering if they should step in and take over.  I was failing miserably partially due to the fact that my kid was about as helpful as if I was trying to dress a corpse for their funeral and partially due to the fact that I was trying to get his snow pants on over his shoes.  The most troubling part was that I couldn’t yell at him for being completely unhelpful.  “Come on why don’t you ever help me!  You’re five years old, you should be doing this by now, why are you so completely worthless?  Oh, that’s right, I do everything for you because I don’t have the patience to watch you take seven minutes to put your socks on.”

Having learned from my mistakes and wanting to be able to yell at him while I dressed him I put all of his gear on before we left the house.  Once he was fully dressed he immediately began to cry about being itchy.  He tried to start taking his gear off and I lost my patience with him, I can deal with his whining, but I wasn’t going to redress him.  The entire way to school he periodically had tantrums complaining about how itchy  he was.  We arrived at school  only to find his class room completely empty, usually they leave one of the teacher’s aids behind to help Winthorpe out to the playground since he routinely arrives a minimum of five minutes later than anyone else in his class.  So, I figured they must be in the gym or somewhere other than the playground.  Never did it occur to me that they were finally putting their foot down and it was time I started getting my kid there the same time other people did.

After checking the gym and various other parts of the school it was evident that they were all out on the playground.  Part of me wanted to tell the kids to exert their strength in numbers to avoid going outside.  There’s no way these kids wanted to be outside, but when kids are in a group like that they are lemmings and they do whatever they are told, it’s actually a thing of beauty.  It makes me wonder if you have a big family do the kids by default actually listen to their parents?  Regardless, it can’t be worth it, two disobedient kids has got to be better than three obedient kids.

What the kids need to do while they are waiting in line to go  outside is take all of their snow gear off.  There is no way the teachers are going to go through the hassle of putting all the kids snow gear back on to go outside.  It’s fucking hell trying to get my kid’s snow shit on, I can’t imagine trying to get some kid I have no  affiliation with geared up to go outside, let alone dozens of them.

While locating snow gear and putting it on your kids can be frustrating, the inability to go outside and being trapped in your home is even worse than the utter frustration children’s snow apparel afflicts on parents.  I am constantly trying to find ways to get the kids out of the house to preserve my sanity and avoid having child protective services called on me when I finally lose my mind.  I read somewhere that Jack Nicholson prepared for his role in the Shining by spending a weekend with a three and a five year old in an isolated cabin in the woods in the middle of the winter.

There are a number of activities that cater to young children such as Catch Air, Sky Zone, and the Children’s Museum.  The unfortunate thing is that these all cost money, and my kids never seem to get the bang for the buck, always wanting to take a break to eat candy or leave the facility prematurely.  However, there is one place to unleash your kids that is always free, at least as long as you don’t do any shopping.  The play land at the mall is typically my last resort when it comes to finding activities to get my kids out of the house during the winter months.

In Grand Rapids there are two options.  The first option is the play land at Woodland Mall.  The play land at Woodland Mall is possibly the most ill conceived play land I have ever seen. All it is is a bunch of oversized modelings of food. There’s bacon, waffles, eggs, and pancakes, seriously what fat ass designed their play land? Whenever I bring my kids there all I want to do is go eat breakfast somewhere. Ultimately, I end up more depressed as I’m forced to watch filthy children climb up and down sculptures of breakfast food. However, I will give the kids that play there credit, they resemble animals released from their cage and into the wild, running around the fake food and making it appear like it is the best day of their lives.

The second option is the play land at River Town Crossings.  This is an excerpt taken from an email I sent to some of my buddies about  an experience I had in November when I took the kids out to Grandville:  (I am picking this up midway through the email so it doesn’t flow real well to begin with)

I made the mistake of going out to Grandville thinking that it would be a better experience for my kids,  never thinking that while that may be the case, it could end up being completely awful for me.  My kids became restless because there was a traffic jam as I left work that caught me completely off guard causing Randolph to want to get out of my truck ten minutes before our estimated arrival. Furthermore, they told me they wanted to go to the mall before going to eat at Chipotle (There has been a national food poisoning scare with Chipotle restaurants, some would see this as a problem I see it as a bonus, shorter lines, it’s my constant glass half full approach to life) so we went to the mall first and after about 15 minutes of running around like they had just won the Super Bowl they were hungry and thirsty.

To solve the thirst problem I went and bought a regular lemonade at the pretzel place next to the play land hoping that that would tide them over until we made our way to Chipotle (which was the only thing keeping me in a positive state of mind at this point). The guy who sold me the lemonade asked if I wanted an extra large for 30 more cents and I basically told him hell no. My kids both took turns sucking down the lemonade and indicated that they were hungry so I decided to purchase some modified pigs in a blanket from the pretzel place to hopefully extinguish their ravenous hunger. They were mini hot dogs wrapped in a soft pretzel and they were truly amazing. Unfortunately, the mini pretzel dogs made my kids quite thirsty and I had to purchase a refill on the lemonade for $1.31 which put my frame of mind into a complete tailspin.

The first two issues I encountered can be blamed on me, not checking traffic conditions and properly snacking up my kids prior to our trip to Rivertown squarely on my shoulders, however there was something else that was much more perplexing and problematic than traffic or a pair of hungry whiney kids. The treehouse playland at Rivertown is a complete and utter nightmare, its the child’s version of an ICP (Insane Clown Posse)concert minus the illicit drugs and Faygo pop. First of all there was this two year old girl who kept climbing up the slide while kids were trying to go down the slide. Never do you feel so helpless as a person than when you can’t yell at a kid for their terrible and irresponsible behavior, because they aren’t your kid. I wanted to grab this little girl by the arm and tell her to knock it the f off and go up and down the slide the proper way, we have rules that are so fundamental to the framework of our society that they must be obeyed, proper slide protocol is at the heart of those rules.

In hindsight, as satisfying as this would have been, I probably should have found the kids parent and given them my business card because that girl is going to need a criminal defense attorney some day. While the two year old climbing the wrong way up the slide was problematic and could have resulted in minor injuries (most likely to the renegade two year old with no regard for slide protocol so no biggie) of more serious concern was the arrival of a 150 lb kid to the play land. He resembled a nose tackle for a division three college football team, not an elementary school  student. The kid ended up running by one of the slides while a small girl was sliding to the end. She ran into him at full speed and careened off of him like a car running into a highway underpass. If the Rivertown play land had a concussion protocol she would have been sent to the locker room for further observation and at the very least would have been held out of next weeks trip to Catch Air.

Unfortunately for her there is no such protocol and I saw her happily running around the play land five minutes later likely with a traumatic brain injury that will go undetected for years. I was hoping that that was going to be the end of the carnage, boy was I wrong. As I was walking with Randolph towards the slide I saw a small heap on the ground that was apparently a child who was crying his eyes out. Wait a minute, I recognize that cry, that sounds like Winthorpe .

Sure enough Winthorpe had fallen no more than a foot off from the slide onto the extremely plush and soft carpet and was now inconsolable. He cried for at least five minutes and couldn’t move his arm (didn’t stop me from taking them through the mall and looking for a pair of grey casual boots, I have had my heart set on finding these elusive boots but I just can’t find them anywhere) Ultimately we ended up eating at A&W in the food court because I just couldn’t go through getting my kids in and out of the car another time just so we could go to Chipotle, and as I write this our nanny is taking Aiden to the doctor to see if he has a broken arm (so they can charge us for an unnecessary medical exam there’s no way he has a broken arm but Shirley insisted on him receiving medical attention)

So, if you are in a pinch to get out of the house this winter take my advice and hit the mall.  Banana Republic has some terrific sales this time of year, and those pretzel pig in the blankets won’t disappoint.