I can't spell aquarium (without double-checking it). In fact, right now, I'm not even sure I've spelled it right. I always think it should be spelled with a c. (Acquarium-- which the spell check is telling me is wrong, even as we speak. Thank you, technology).
That being said, this weekend, we took Emmy to the Tennessee Aquarium (which I will always call the Chattanooga Aquarium, since it is in Chattanooga). It was an ambitious trip, because it required 2 and 1/2 hours of travel to get there. We also weren't really sure how 18-month-old Emmy would respond to the aquarium. Would she know what she was looking at? Would she care?
Despite a few missteps by mom and dad (meaning us, not my parents) we had an excellent time. Well, Emmy had an excellent time. Tom and I had an exhausting time. As we were walking back to the car with an evidently grumpy and tuckered child, we discussed how much the trip differed from our last trip to the aquarium when we were both in college (and single, childless folk). How much this trip seemed like work and less like leisure. Which is pretty much the epitome of being parents for us. Life is suddenly full of so much more work.
As to the missteps, mentioned above? Well, we forgot to pack an extra sippy cup, so we had to wash the milk out of the one we had. We forgot a second outfit, so when we stopped for lunch, and got ketchup all over the first outfit, we had to stop at walmart to pick up a new outfit for the inevitable aquarium pictures. We had snacks ready to go, sitting on the kitchen table, and forgot them too.
The stop for lunch wasn't planned, either. But Emmy got fussy about 30 minutes before we reached Chattanooga. Plus, I knew that the lunch options at the aquarium would be overpriced, so we found an exit with a few restaurants and chose dairy queen for lunch). Unfortunately for us, dairy queen (DAIRY queen) didn't have any milk. (Tom harped on that for the rest of the day) They also didn't have any juice. So, poor Emmy had to have water for lunch. (Although, they did offer us pink hawaiian punch or something... which we politely declined).
But here's the best part of the day: We bought our tickets (ignoring the ticket seller who referred to Emmy as "him") and then we walked into the first exhibit, which was penguins.
My child, who I was afraid wouldn't be interested in the aquarium, squealed in delight and watched the penguins for 15 minutes. I tried to pick her up and move on 3 times before she finally agreed to leave the penguin tank. She stood there and squealed, and laughed and pointed, and bounced up and down in glee. When we got to the gift shop, I walked her over to the stuffed animals, and she grabbed a stuffed penguin and gave it a kiss. Needless to say, Emmy has a new stuffed animal in her bed. We named him Tacky (after a story my mom used to read me called "Tacky the Penguin" http://amzn.to/ivBbD1).
We had a good time going through the rest of the aquarium. Another highlight was Emmy blowing a kiss to a gecko that was out for petting by kids. The lady holding the gecko asked Emmy if she wanted to touch the gecko, but Emmy preferred a long-distance greeting. She blew a kiss and we moved on. (Which made me happy since I didn't want to have to use the hand sanitizer)
We didn't make it all the way through. Even leaving the house by nine, we were pushing Emmy's naptime, and around 2 pm, we hit the wall and Emmy got squirmy, whiny and belligerent. So we bundled her into the stroller and made our way to the exit.
Since Fayetteville is roughly an hour and 1/2 from Chattanooga (though not necessarily on the way back home) we decided to go see Grandma Watson to break up the drive home. We visited with grandma, had dinner with her and made it home around 9 pm. It was a long day for all of us.
But we had such a good time.
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