Blessed by Sticking It Out

F R E E, that spells free, creditreport.com baby! Just kidding.

Haylie knows how to spell free and the story goes like this...we were all in the bathroom one day while mommy was going potty and she pulled a coupon flier for a local grocery store out of our bathroom reader basket. She opened and said, "look mom, free ice cream!" I told her that was very good and explained it was "buy one get one free." I also told her that whenever she sees that she should tell me. Got to take advantage of FREE, ya know.

On the news the other night I saw that Como Zoo was offering free rides during the week from 4pm to 8pm. Kind of off hours to be venturing into the city, but I couldn't let that stop us from taking advantage of it. So I gathered some other moms and their kids and planned a trip. Yes, I knew it was going to probably be busy but I don't think I GRASPED that is was going to be busy. We got there about 3 and struggled to find parking. Then we struggled to move in the zoo once we got in the entrance. The rides were open, but they weren't free until 4. At 4 the rides were swamped and the zoo opened up so we did the animals for a while. After about an hour or so of that, we braced ourselves and headed for the rides. I so wanted to bail standing in line for our first ride for the spinning tea cup but I knew I had to do at least one ride. After the one ride I suggested we finish some of the zoo stuff and then try again. The zoo closed and I let my kids run free in the grass as people headed for their cars. I told the other mothers I was thinking about leaving. They however had already been persuaded by their children to stay and didn't want to fight traffic trying to go home anyway. A brief thought came to me..."I invited them, who am I to cut out now?" So we stuck it out and did two more rides, which took another hour. It really wasn't too bad standing in line. We had snacks which kept the kids entertained and we took pictures which guaranteed we'd have fond memories to recall. I'm SO glad we stayed. I feel like I was blessed by sticking out. Being an only child, I really didn't have to stick things out if I didn't want to, my parents were usually pretty accommodating. It may seem so simple and silly to some, but it was a great lesson to me. Just because there is resistance and it's uncomfortable doesn't mean it's not worth it. It was a bonding experience of sorts with the other moms. And like I said, we have pictures to prove how much we love our children.