a visit to McDonald's makes your day!

After a long rush-hour drive into Austin, followed by an hour or so lingering around a doctor's waiting room, with nothing for the kiddoes to do except go up and down in the elevator 15 times, what better way to diffuse the corked up energy than a stop off at good old Maccie-Dees!

And I'm not just talking any Maccie-Dees.. This one had the outdoor Helter-Skelter, 'Wham Bam! Thank you Momma!' play-center tagged onto the side, designed to have every passing kid screaming in their car seat.

Our kid was no exception. In fact, our 2 year old has recently developed a bit of an obsession for 'parks' (our name for playground), making it impossible to drive by anything that resembles a play-scape, without the wee man melting down.

And so the glorious sight of those primary colored, contorted plastic tubes had little britches just about peeing in his pants. I've never seen him quite so excited, as he kicked and waved both hands about frantically yelling "park!" at the top of lungs.

It's a wonderful feeling to witness such raw pleasure in your child. And how easy it would be to spoil our little guys (and Daddy) by more frequent visits to those Golden Arches. Instead I like to keep our McDonald's fixes limited to special occasions - a bit like this one.....

As baby and I ordered our burgers and first ever Happy Meal, I watched Daddy and our number one son, hurry over to the 'park', with a wee bit of trepidation. He'd been too little to climb up inside the indoor play area the last time we'd been to a McDonald's, and it had been bitterly disappointing for the little guy.

Thank goodness he had it made this time. Momma, however, did not, and learning to let go of the little man, when he was out of sight, lost within the towering, tubular maze, having to hold his own against bigger more rambunctious kids, was quite a 'jump' up from The Jumpy Place.

When I finally saw his cotton top flop, as he gleefully emerged from the bottom of the large Helter-Skelter, I was so very relieved to see him safe and smiling. He was so pleased with himself that he did a song and dance all the way back to the start. We watched proudly as he mastered the tubes over and over again, until Momma finally realized that he really was OK.

Our 13 month old sat at the bottom of the slide, at first, signing 'help' incessantly, until he saw Mum and Dad tucking into the yummy junk food, and from then on, he was more than happy to be stuck at the base of the play area - that's where all the food was!

After gorging our 'celebratory' burger feast, Daddy patted my swollen belly. "You think you can handle a daughter?" He grinned.