These were my son's words to me when he woke up yesterday morning.
"What?" I asked. "I'm right here."
"No," he said. "I want to see a dead Mommy."
I soon realized that he meant to say mummy and became anxious. I don't mind his enthusiasm for ancient human remains (in fact I encourage it) but the only Egyptian exhibit that I know of is at the Royal Ontario Museum. In Toronto. I considered it. I even went so far as to visit the ROM's website. Then, I thought of taking the offspring to the big city, without a supporting adult, riding public transit, and herding them, exhausted, through the museum, and my lazy node turned on in my brain.
So I didn't go. I checked my e-mail. I checked facebook. I put away some laundry. I talked on the phone. I made lunch. At around 1:30, I got the idea of going to the Children's Museum in Hamilton instead. I checked their hours. They close at 3:30. Forget it, thought I, by the time we got there they'd only have an hour to play. Then a minute later I thought, I'm going anyway, they'll have a whole hour to play. Besides, there's a park outside.
William had a mini-fit when he realized we weren't going to the "Toronto Museum with the bat cave" but once he was there he and his sister had a good time. Will's favourite activity was playing with the plastic pipes. You can velcro them to the wall, in different configurations, and then send a ball through them. The boy is a natural engineer. Jadzia wore an ill-fitting fairy princess gown and told everyone how pretty she was. They both served me a plastic meal at the pretend diner. Before we knew it the museum was closing, so I corralled the offspring out the door. They played in the park for a half-hour afterwards. It was such a gorgeous sunny day.
No dead Mommy, but one very tired one.
