I want to go on that one!!!!

I'm either the greatest mom in the world or off my rocker. I took both kids, by myself, to Nickelodeon Universe at Mall of America today to ride rides. The day went pretty well. Rudy was content to patiently drool and chew on everything within arm's reach (greetings to tooth number two who made his appearance this morning - the first made his appearance the day after Thanksgiving).

Baba was content to ride as many rides as possible in the 3 hours allotted to his riding pleasure (on Tuesdays, Nick U offers a 3 hour unlimited ride wrist band for $9.95. Basically kids can ride all the 3 point rides until they puke or they reach the 3 hour time limit, whichever comes first. Best deal ever).

There was one minor hiccup in the day. Baba is 41 inches. You have to be 42 to ride a couple of the rides alone. He really wanted to ride Swiper's Swooper, but wasn't tall enough. With the help of a very nice Random Mom in line behind him, we avoided a meltdown. He chitchatted the entire ride with Random Mom. Random Mom got off the ride and said, "What a friendly little boy." Remind anyone of Baba's namesake?

Even worse then having to be 42 inches to ride Swiper's Swooper alone, you have to be 48 inches to ride the roller coaster he really wants to ride. The first hill looks like an upside down "U" - straight up and then straight down. (Big Zjosh, next time you are in town and feeling like going to an amusement park, I will so ride this ride with you). Then it goes into an upside down loop. I really, really wanted to ride it - I'm over 48 inches! - but I couldn't really leave my kids unattended. Darn kids.

I tried to make lifts for his shoes to help him "grow" the last inch out of a diaper, but they didn't work. Diapers are too squishy, must try other material. He was content to ride the Pineapple Popper 4 times in a row to make up for the injustice of his lack of height. His other ride of the day was the WonderPets Flyboat. Everytime he reached the top of the Flyboat ride, he would point to the roller coaster of his desire and say, "That's the one I want to go on." I would say he is too short and the operator would laugh.

To get his mind off of the unfairness of life, we had lunch. After lunch, he sat back and said, "Mom, I grew my inch. Let's go ride some more."

Unfortunately, he hadn't grown, but to make up for it we got some ice cream in his favorite hue, blue (it was cotton candy flavor and kind of gross, but to each his own). We also, much to the boy's delight, saw a set of triplets that was about Rudy's age. Baba said, "Mom, the only problem with 3 babies is we'd need to buy 2 more cribs."

While it is true we would need to buy 2 more cribs, I have a hard time believing that would be the only problem with triplets. I can think of several more, including the fact that, despite my best efforts, I have failed to grow an extra arm. When the number of babies outnumber the number of arms, I think that's a problem. Enough cribs or not.