~The Fouladi Family~: Sometimes you just gotta LAUGH

The last 4 days have been tough with a baby who has been crying a lot more than usual and a toddler with a fever and sickness. Today I had the opportunity to go to Cy-Fest with a dear friend and her daughter. When I looked it up online, it said 4,000 people went last year so I knew I was in for a busy time. Little did we know HOW busy it was going to be. While the amount of people wasn't the problem - the lack of staff/booths/size was. If they had 4 face painters instead of 2, it would have been perfect! If they had 2 or 3 petting zoos instead of 1 tiny one - perfect! If they had 2 toddler bounce houses instead of 1 - perfect! you get the point - they did not have enough activities to offer to all 4,000 people. So we found ourselves standing in the heat, with 3 kids (2 cranky toddlers who just wanted to get their faces painted... well 20 minutes after standing in line - that's not gonna happen. Then just wanted to pet animals... after seeing the mile long line in the heat - that's not gonna happen.). Yes it was an experience! At least we got their pictures taken by some magazine - so maybe one of our kids will be popular from this whole experience! HA!

- Heat, 3 kids, stroller, Cy who is grabbing candy wrappers off the ground and licking the sugar off them (yes, nasty and YES I stopped him each time but he did sneak a couple past me)
- Long Lines EVERYWHERE
- 2 1/2 hours later we had successfully gotten their pictures taken and Cy had jumped in the bounce house. Time to go!
- Heading to the car, it starts raining. Yep, just our luck! Speed walking with the kids ALL the way to the other end of the parking lot
- Start leaving... Oh what do you know - the entire festival also decided to leave, causing a ruckus of cars all trying to run out and get on with their Saturdays.
- I just LAUGH... sometimes you just gotta LAUGH at your bad luck and bad timing
- Drive to Chick-Fil-A so a 3 month old starving baby girl can eat - took a while. Got there - JAMMED PACKED!
- Walk across the street to Wendy's for crappy food and a quiet atmosphere (you'll understand the "quiet" in a minute)
- Lulu proceeds to SCREAM the entire time I am ordering... Cy then tells mama "CYCY POOPOO", which I ask him to hold so I can get seating (He then walks around the restaurant holding his crotch and proclaiming to any who would listen: "cycy need pooooo poooo, cycy need poopoo. Hold poopoo mama?")
- I just LAUGH... sometimes you just gotta LAUGH at your "too much information" toddler
- I take him to the bathroom and afterwards, he walks up to a table of teenage boys and tells them that "Cycy poopoo'ed in potty!" haha - poor guys! On the way to the table (mind you, Lulu has been crying this entire time and the whole restaurant now looks on in frustration, begging me with their eyes to shut the kid up!) - Cy RUNS into a chair with a man sitting in it (he wasn't watching where he was going) - bounces off the chair and hits the mini wall on the opposite end, ending his bouncing fun on the floor. OH DEAR! He then proceeds to cry. Mama throws baby down, puts bag down and picks up 40 pound 2 year old.
- At this point I just sit at the table, baby crying, kid crying - and LAUGH... sometimes you just gotta LAUGH at the chaos
- We eat dry chicken, kids have apples and ketchup, and Lulu refuses to eat - only wants to scream while I try to feed her
- My friend and I then look at each other - and I tell her 'Laugh, it's the only way to make it through" and we proceed to laugh. I'm sure the people looking on all thought we were crazy - and we were! We were crazy to go to a festival with 4,000 other people, to think Chick-Fil-A on a Saturday at lunch time would be empty, to think a baby would wait 40 minutes to eat... Yes, we are crazy - but you know what? I'd rather be the crazy laughing lady than the crazy CRYING lady... any day!

SO when you are stuck with a bad day - just laugh... it gets better and laughing is SOOOO much prettier than crying ;-)