family fun...

Yesterday we took the kids to the Mid Hudson Valley Children's museum, which is essentially a condemned house full of Little-Tykes plastic furniture and a couple of dinosaur skeletons made of surplus plumbing supplies. (I exaggerate... but only a very little.) More than a little disappointing. Thank god we used coupons.

And somehow, eight years of parenting has still not taught us that if you arrange your day such that the youngest child misses his or her nap, they will make the rest of your afternoon a whine-and-tantrum-filled hell on earth.

Anyway, after the museum and lunch and tantrums, we went to the Target to buy a microwave. We have a microwave already, but there is something vaguely "up" with it. The other day my wife and I ware talking in the kitchen and she put something in the microwave and turned it on, and after a few seconds we both looked at each other with the same sort of "That's not the sound it USED to make.... is it?" expression. It's weirdly quiet... like something that used to spin or hum or blow in there is no longer spinning, humming, or blowing. It still seems to cook, but it frightens us. So we bought a new one, for this is the way of our people. When I made some comment about putting it out to the curb, my wife said - "Oh no! I'm not throwing it away! I'll "freecycle it" or give it to Goodwill, but I'm not putting a working microwave out to the trash!" Oh, I see... we're too afraid to use it ourselves for fear it might explode or give us radiation poisoning, but the poor folks who shop at the thrift store... well, what's a little radiation or a small explosion to them? They're probably used to it.

Maybe we'll donate it to the Children's Museum.