We made plans to go to the Cherry Festival parade with some friends on Saturday. In advance, we figured we could all bring a side dish and purchase a main entree at the festival or somewhere else nearby. So we all headed to North East with coolers, strollers, diaper bags and bags of whatever else we decided we needed.
The parade was great -- with the exception of one thing: the firetrucks. Granted, this was a firefighter's parade, so you expect lots of firetrucks. But you don't expect to have ringing in your ears after. We were sitting on the curb, as many children and parents do, with the trucks driving down the middle of the street, blaring their sirens and honking those loud horns. Each time a siren went off or a horn blew, Autumn screamed equally as loud, despite the fact that I covered her ears. A few times I jumped, too, because the noise was so loud it hurt my ears. And there were tons of firetrucks. As if it wasn't enough to honk the horns and blare the sirens in front of us, some people near us kept shouting at the trucks and at the ambulances (even if they weren't using their sirens) -- "Let's hear some sirens!" or "Is that all the siren you got?" Can these people hear? Really. My child is screaming, my hands are covering her ears and several other children nearby have their ears covered as well. Why must we beg for more ear-piercing noise?
After the parade and our little impromptu picnic, we all headed to the festival to see what rides there were for the kids, especially 3-year-old G. As we got in line for tickets, I went over to see what tickets were required for the kids' ride where the cars ride around in a circle. The answer: three. Three tickets at $1 each to go around in a circle for about a minute. Not worth it. The same ride is one ticket at Waldameer. Ride-a-ramas weren't good when we had only two kids who could pretty much go on two rides and two kids who might not go on any rides. So we talked G out of the rides with a game at the duck pond (for $1) and a promise of big slides at the playground.
A walk to the North East school playground proved to be great fun as all four kids enjoyed the many slides over and over again -- for free. I think they had more fun there and I think all six of us parents had fun, too. We all were acting like kids and before we knew it, 8 p.m. and bedtime had arrived.
Sometimes we think so much about the fancy rides or the festivals, but we so easily forget about the good, old-fashioned playground. I guess it's just another thing where we, as adults, complicate something that doesn't need to be complicated.