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Sunday, January 15, 2006

One of the adventures of parenting: Spelunking!

Husband has a bug up his butt lately about getting out of the house. So yesterday we went to a place not too far away from here, Inner Space Caverns. I'd never been.

It was an adventure, especially since we found out no strollers were allowed. (cue scary music "Dun dun duunnnnn!")

But we were feeling spunky, so we decide to go for it. I mean after all, we'd just be 50 feet underground, with wet slippery floors, in a place where children touching the walls would equal certain death for the cave, but no big deal, right?

It was decided that husband would carry middle child, and I would carry youngest and man the camera. Oldest walked with the threat that he'd better not touch anything, OR ELSE.

Holding the baby and taking pictures in a place where no tripods were allowed mostly resulted in pictures that looked like this:



Impressive, no?

So after a while I decide to let him walk, just with a deathgrip on his little hand. That worked about this well:



Which I guess at least looks like. . .something. It was especially fun when he decided he would go no further holding my hand, and laid down spread eagle on his stomach on the cave floor. As the tour proceeded down the pathway out of sight, I tried to stay calm. So I lovingly yanked him up by one arm, and continued walking. Every time we stopped he pulled the swimming on the cave floor routine. So now I had a bored toddler covered in mud. Good times!

Finally we decide, after he broke free and actually ran towards a small cliff, that husband would carry him, and I would be in charge of middle child. (who was only wearing socks by the way, we could not find her shoes that morning to save our lives. I suspect gnomes.) Well, my arm was completely numb by this point, so we said "Screw it" and she walked. Those socks will never be the same again, but she actually did fine.

For those of you who think less of us for this move, I say, hush. You weren't there, and you just don't know. Would you rather I attempted to carry her, and then dropped her? Or how about if husband had still carried her, and the baby had run off a cliff? Would that have been better? I think not. So there.

And it made my camera very, very happy. See?



A picture where you can tell what it is, woohoo!

The trip was 3/4 of a mile in length, and took over an hour, but all in all, we actually had a really good time. The kids didn't even flip out too much when they turned off the lights and did that absolute darkness thing. Which the tour guide wasn't going to do, because of the kids, but some 40 year old hippy who obviously had no kids insisted on.

So, we successfully spelunked with three small children in tow. Woohoo!

I leave you with a parting shot of the elusive cave fairy.

1 comment:

Lacey said...

Ah, who cares about the socks, they are cheap...sanity isn't:-)