Our Ice Cream Fantasy

Last night I had a grand idea in honor of the first day of school.  Wouldn't it be great to take the kids out to Cold Stone for a "surprise" special treat.  I even had a coupon for buy one, get one free!  It would be perfect...

I had dinner done well before 5, so we were ready to go after Daddy got home from work and had some dinner himself.  It would be perfect...

It was a nice evening for a walk, so we all agreed to walk to our "surprise destination" that was only down the big hill, and 3 blocks over.  It would be perfect...

The kids had a blast trying to guess where we were going the whole way there.  So far, it was perfect.

When we got there the choices were daunting.  It occurred to me that we don't go out for ice cream often enough.  And that was even before I told the kids they could pick one topping each.  Perfect...

It was right about that time that I smelled something foul.  Mark apparently caught wind of it too, because he started unbuckling the baby and offered to go change him while I dealt with ordering the ice cream.  We both felt he got the better end of the deal.  So far, so good...

"Where's the diaper bag?"
"Uhh... "  I guess I didn't exactly picture a dirty diaper in my ice cream fantansy.  "Just go in the bathroom and see if you can clean him up a little and flush some of it down the toilet." I said.  Mark is such a good sport, he actually agreed, while I continued the impossible task of choosing ice cream flavors with the other two.  Things were still going okay...

Then Mark stuck his head out of the bathroom, "Hon, could you come in here?"  Oh, this must be bad.  I walked into the restroom and found Hagen spread out on a cabinet not meant for changing babies.  He had the most satisfied look on his face.  Mark, on the other hand, had that look on his face that anyone with kids is familiar with.  It's that "what in the world are we gonna do?" look.  The one you give eachother when you feel utterly trapped, and no amount of parenting experience would be helpful.  Things did not look good...

Mark's idea was to make a diaper out of paper towels.  My idea was for Hagen to go "commando" and hope for the best.  It was afterall, our ice cream fantasy!  I won.  We got him cleaned up and exited the restroom as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened in there.  Things were going swiftly down hill by this point...

The other two still hadn't chosen their flavors.  I was trying to give them suggestions like mint with oreos, cotton candy with sprinkles, chocolate with peanut butter, but they wanted things like lemon tart with peanut butter, or cotton candy with M&Ms.  They won that battle and ordered whatever they wanted.  There went my plan to share with them!  We ended up buying four ice creams to make everyone happy.  Thank goodness we had a coupon.  Cold Stone is not cheap!  But things were looking better again...

While we were walking home in the dark, eating our ice cream, Mark turned to me and said, "This wasn't exactly how I pictured tonight."  He then described to me how he thought things would go.  Apparently he had an ice cream fantasy of his own...  All of us sitting at the table outside the ice cream shop, enjoying our treats, as the kids told him all about their first day of school.  That would have been perfect...

But then, it may have been more forgettable.  This Ice Cream adventure would not be one we would ever forget.  And that makes it perfect in my eyes!