Friday, July 11, 2014

Turn Down For......Children

One glorious day, I was handed a ticket to a local rock music festival. How much better can life get for a broke single-mom who loves music? And a beautiful day it was, with just a few glitches to keep life interesting, colourful and worth celebrating every child-free moment.

Things were looking to be perfect once I dropped eldest child off at a birthday party and sped to the festival to get in a precious hour of music before party-pick up time came. Yep, a music festival with kids is definitely destined to be perfect, right? Except that somehow, in the mad rush to get out the door and remember every. single. little. thing. I could possibly need to bring children to gymnastics, a birthday party and a festival, I forgot to grab the wallet that was staring at me from the living room floor all morning. I even grabbed a hairbrush, leave-in-conditioner and make-up to freshen up later (!) but not my wallet? I guess I thought there could be hot guys at this thing. Boy was I right about that. I guess I even imagined I would talk to one. Boy was I wrong on that point.

When I first got to the festival, I had an awesome parking spot. Perfect for a busy mom who has to leave mid-festival to retrieve a child. But I soon realized that the wallet was missing. Endless swearing and muttering under my breath ensued while I turned fifty shades of irritated and raced home and back. Upon arriving back at the festival, I found parking that was not quite as ideal and was a bit of a squeeze, but it still seemed to work. Until I came back an hour later to find a lovely parking ticket waiting to greet me.

So I picked up my eldest child, R, from one of the awesomest birthday parties for a 5-year-old you can imagine (I mean riding horses people, it does not get much better than that for a My-Little-Pony loving girl, right?). So of course R would be a happy camper to bring to a music festival, right? I mean, what's not to love about live music, happy care-free people, food trucks and children's activities? Right? But, wait, that's not taking into account my 5-year-old's attitude and dislike of everything mommy-centered.

Immediately upon arriving, R launched into full meltdown mode. I mean full on yelling and crying as if she is Daenerys and someone stole her dragons. I have to admit, I may have started up my phone's camera app, lined up a few shots and measured the irony and worth of my daughter's crying face juxtaposed beside Man Made Lakes belting out their hit "Dragonfly" on the day stage in terms of Facebook and Instagram likes, but the more mature mama side took over.

R eventually calmed down and later enjoyed some food truck fare on a blanket with some friends, giving me a chance to finally score some food for myself.

I was hurrying to a much-lauded fish taco truck when three very good looking guys held a box of pizza toward me with one slice left, and asked me if I would like it. Now, I don't know what you do when you are faced with three hot guys, but apparently I forget how to speak entirely. One is enough to make my brain completely shut down, and there were three of them. So what did I do? Did I make small talk about the festival? Did I ask their names or where they were from? No. I shoved pizza in my mouth and kept walking. Maybe muttering a thank you that probably came out sounding like Homer Simpson when he is craving a piece of food. Because I'm smooth like that. Apparently, I do my hair nice, even bring a brush and leave-in-conditioner with me so I can go out and NOT talk to hot guys. But maybe not being completely frazzled by life with children would help? We'll find out at the next music festival when I am dropping off my little sweeties at my parents house first.