Incredible Outing

Saturday evening Charlie and I decided to do something with "just Ian". You know, one of those things that we might not be able to do with just him for a while after Drew comes home? Charlie said "let's go to Incredible Pizza". For those of you outside the Tulsa area or without an Incredible Pizza in your town...it's a fun and food place for the family. They have all kinds of games, go karts, minature golf, bumper cars, and every arcade game you can imagine (or at least I could imagine). Plus, they have a pizza buffett (the salad bar was actually quite nice). I was actually pleasantly surprised by the experience.

When we got there, the line to get in was crazy long, but it moved pretty fast. We decided to eat first...smart mommy. After we ate, then we headed toward the fun. Ian's little eyes were wide with wonder. I didn't know if they'd have stuff suitable for an almost three year old...but they did.

Ian spotted the "car" first. The last time he wanted to ride a car, he was fine until it moved and then he was done. Not this time. He rode the car about 5 times before we convinced him to try something else. Then we played "whack a mole"...great...teach a 3 year old to hit something. Then we found the carousel. Haven't been able to get him on a carousel before. Saturday night....we couldn't get him off. Every time we took him off, he just cried and cried. But soon he'd be distracted by something else and he was fine. He climed the stairs to the landing over the ball pit...then he couldn't figure out how to get down. So, the tears started to flow...not too much though. Charlie walked around to each side of the stairs and guided him down. Then he went back up and down the stairs several more times. He rode the train, played in the balls, ran around, rode the carousel about 50 times (literally) and watched the go karts go around the track. He was mesmerized by the go karts. He stood there with his little face and hands pressed against the glass watching for about 15 minutes.

He figured things out rather quickly. When one of his car rides was over, he said "more time". Charlie said "let's play whack a mole"...Ian said "no...more time Daddy"...and proceeded to point to the card reader where you slide your card to pay for the ride. We both laughed when we realized that he had figured out how to make it go. Every time if would stop...he'd point to the card reader and say "more time".

It was great fun. All three of us enjoyed our evening. When we were walking to the car, Charlie said "any idea what time it is?" Neither of us had a watch on. We arrived at Incredible Pizza around 4pm. I said "it's probably around 6:15 or so."....Charlie pulled out his cell phone and it was 7:30pm. Wow...3 1/2 hours.

It was worth everything to watch Ian having so much fun. We had an incredible outing with "just Ian".