George & the binky have nothing in common, I know, but give me a minute to explain. The past 48 hours have really tested my patience as a parent. Bed times have been awful in this house, which results in an incredibly pissy toddler. My train of thought 2 days ago was: angry toddler? Might as well take away that binky and be miserable right along with him. I’ve tried to take away the binky before, but never was serious about it then (a year and a half ago) until now.

I thought I was ready  a few days ago. So serious I CUT the tip off his favorite binky while he was downstairs playing. When he came up from a nap I acted surprised that his binky was broken and consoled him. Little did I know I would be just as sad as him with the withdrawal symptoms that would infiltrate our house. Whining. Screaming. Hyperventilating. Throwing his 26 pounds on the hardwood floors, you name it: we saw it.

We lasted about 36 hours until 12:30am last night/this morning when sleep deprivation hit my husband and I to the point where we would have paid a LOT of money for a binky. I remembered a hidden one (for emergencies) and gave it to Jackson. We lost. He won. At this point I would let the kid keep his binky forever. He can go to the college with that crazy thing, just keep the sanity in our house. To recap, in the past 2 days, everybody except for Sidney Girl has had around 5 hours/night, WAY too little for us. If you’re keeping score in the Battle of the Binky: Jackson:2, Parents: 0.

So after suffering a blowing loss in the battle of the binky, we had tickets to go and meet Curious George at Edaville Railroad in Carver, MA this morning. I know you can imagine how fun it was getting there with an almost 3 year old who has slept for just a couple of hours. Misery. Pure misery, but we made it. It’s been a couple of years since we were last at Edaville and it appears things have gone a bit downhill. To their credit, this was probably their first weekend open so I’m sure there were some kinks to work out. The thing that concerned me the most was that the first 2 rides we tried to go on (Dumbo & carousel) both broke while we were waiting and ON the ride. When Dumbo is hitting the ground when he should be flying, I get a little nervous letting my toddler ride it. Especially when the very young maintenance woman comes by to fix it and acts like it happens all the time.

The best part was when Curious George and the “Man” in the Yellow Hat come out. When we first arrived, we were the next in line when they decided to close the line because George needed a break. No big deal, that’s when we tried to ride the rides. When we returned 30 minutes later to meet Jackson’s hero, George, it was a MOB SCENE. Like these toddlers and their parents were meeting Justin Bieber himself.

The unfortunate part was that the ONLY Edaville employees around were about 15 years old. It is NOT their fault either, how should they know how to manage a crowd like this? There should have been a manager, at least 25 years old or so, who could manage crowd control. People were basically pushing, shoving, and cutting line to get to Curious George. We finally got up there and the poor boy dressed up as the Man in the Yellow Hat looked miserable. Someone from the back of the mosh pit yelled at him to smile, which he did. Jackson was happy to meet George, but I was disappointed that no one knew how to make people form a line or how to organize an event like this. We had a nice time walking around the park, but I wouldn’t let Jackson go on any rides after seeing 2 mechanical failures in a row. We spent about $60 to meet Curious George and I’m not sure I would recommend Edaville to anyone again until they get some employees who are trained better.

I hope you’re having a good weekend. My day got better after Edaville when we went to my cousin’s for a BBQ and Jackson managed to find dog poop to get all over himself. Because what is better than a sleep-deprived, cranky toddler?
One covered in dog shit.