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Amusing

If I wore tacky t-shirts mine would sayI took six kids to an amusement park and didn’t lose my mind. It was actually my idea to load my kids & nephews (ranging in age from 3 to 16-years-old) into the minivan and drive 50 minutes to Sea Breeze Amusement Park. It is a locally owned park in Rochester, NY. It has all the rides of a chain establishment with much shorter lines.

My small army walked single file through the gate. ( Cue: theme song to Rocky) I tagged behind, pulling a red Radio Flyer wagon carrying a cooler of food, a heaping pile of towels and clothes. My kids know the drill. Mama ain’t about to spend a fortune buying junk from a concession stand. Men looked at me like I was a leper. Are those all her kids? Women gave the I couldn’t do that, you’re the shit nod. My uterus is tired, but I didn’t pop six kids out of this womb.

I kept the younger two with me at the kiddie water park while the older boys went down the monstrous slides. They didn’t want me to tag along. The most difficult part of parenting is not caring for a baby or chasing a toddler, it is having to let go when they grow up.

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This outing wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows. My 3 and 6-year-olds whined for the first 30 minutes. “I’m hot.” “I’m hungry.” There was minimal complaining after I gave the you keep this up and we will go home speech. The speech is only effective if delivered with your teeth clenched. They snapped out of it and were soon laughing hysterically on rides. It was contagious until I rode the wooden roller coaster with them. As we walked toward the exit I overheard another kid asked his friend, “Did you hear that old lady screaming?” Old?

At the end of the day my kids were begging to stay. My nephew, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to get out of there. He lost his lunch on a ride called the “Whirl Wind.” I am just glad I didn’t pay for it.

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