UpChuck E. Cheese

Our oldest child has mastered a skill. I mean, of course, in addition to be being able to cry at a moment's notice about the color of her socks on a Tuesday. I mean that she can now dress herself for school. Yes, she's six and has been dressing herself for years -- technically. Actually, until kindergarten started, her self-dressing skill was never in question. But when we all had to get out the door by 7 a.m., it became painfully clear that something was awry.

Anna is an "in the moment" kind of gal. Which means that between choosing clean underwear and putting them on, she can find any number of barbies to dress, stuffed animals to serenade, and world leaders to E-mail. At any other time, we enjoy watching this comedy, sometimes with a bowl of popcorn. But in the pre-caffeinated hour of a rushed week day, it can put quite a strain on one's connection to the Divine. So, her daddy and I, with the goal-oriented fervor of first children, tried out a Chuck E. Cheese reward chart to motivate her to dress herself before breakfast without being poked, prodded, nagged, begged, or otherwise financially compensated. This meant that once she completed a couple of weeks with her chart, we had to take her to Chuck E. Cheese to get her free tokens. This is her "I'm-at-Chuck-E.-Cheese-and-I've-got-tokens" face.

But her mommy and daddy learned a hard lesson on our visit to Chuck E. Cheese: free tokens are never free. Of course we knew an outing to Chuck E. Cheese would be crowded and loud -- we're not stupid.  Having been parents now for 6 years and having lived in 3 different states in that time, we've been to lots of Chuck E. Cheeses. We assumed, as red-blooded, marketing-addled Americans, that the restaurant chain rule would apply. Sure it would be loud and crowded, but there would also be upbeat music, fattening pizza, kid-friendly rides, and an enormous mouse suit that may or may not be stuffed with a stoned teenager. We figured we could deal with it if it meant that the kids had fun. But you can see where this is going. It was much, much worse than any annoying-but-generally-wholesome experience we had in mind.

First off, we paid a fortune for a "large" pizza that anywhere else would have been classified as "postage stamp". Then we waited for it long enough to find ourselves nearly permanently affixed to the audibly sticky seats and table. This is Maria's "I'm-probably-done-waiting-for-pizza" face.

This is Steve keeping Maria occupied with a lively game of "smash the cockroach."

This is me faking an "I'm having a great time" mommy smile. Anna's smile appears genuine, thank goodness.

I really tried not to whine about the unsanitary conditions I was noticing throughout dinner. I do realize I'm a little too emotionally involved with my hand sanitizer. I get it. I do. But when Anna ran her fingernail along the edge of the booth rail, and scraped a thick collection of gunk into her nail bed, I had no choice but to throw up in my mouth a little. And then to heave her over my shoulder and sprint off to scrub her hands in the bathroom, which thankfully still had one working soap dispenser.

 After ingesting our pepperoni-and-disease-flavored pizza that was priced like it was made of gold flecks mined by Kate Middleton's own family, Steve and I gathered up our girls, while trying to minimize contact with any of the surfaces around us, and headed off to the rides. We employed our usual man-to-man defense, with Steve guarding the token-laden kindergartner and me on toddler duty.

I learned quickly that the toddler preferred to play on non-moving rides, so I completely missed out on the fun Steve and Anna were having putting token after token into broken machines.

I did, however, get in on the horror of realizing my angel of a daughter had climbed into a plastic race car that had recently been occupied by what I can only hope was an incontinent child. Mind you, I was not aware that her precious little pink-sandaled feet were resting in urine until she had been in there for a full minute. And then I had a second child to scrub up in the bathroom.

I tapped out after the urine-car incident. I took Maria out to the truck for the rest of the evening while Steve braved it out with Anna, who was only a little put off by the fact that every other machine she tried just ate her hard-earned token and sadly blinked its two or three working lights at her.

By the time we got them home, I cashed in my determined mommy chips and put them both in the bath -- even though I had just bathed them that afternoon. I'm just proud to say I resisted the urge to actually dip them in rubbing alcohol.

The week following our visit to the petri dish, we all fought off different sicknesses, from colds to stomach upsets. Thankfully, we have lots of people around us who pray for constantly anyway, so we're recovered. And much, much wiser, I might add.