Take a ride.....

Oh having a toddler is fun.  It's kind of cool to be a SAHM and have time and money to do these sorts of things.  I NEVER got to do stuff like this as a kid.  Do you find yourself justifying purchases and activities under the pretense that you're giving your children a better childhood than you had?  I do. For sure. No doubt.

Today I took Mimi on Thomas the Tank Engine in Burnet Texas, a mere 1 hr 10 min away (ouch).  She quietly sat in the back watching Nemo as I navigated us through towns full of Ford F150 trucks and tractor supply stores.  We got there right as our assigned train ride was about to leave.  We made it on, and wouldn't you know it? They NEVER even checked to see if I had tickets!  I could have saved myself the $40 bucks!  Anyway, I digress....

Mimi was somewhat underwhelmed by the train ride.  We take the metrorail here is Austin down to the Children's museum about once a week, which looks and feels like a stereotypical train to a 2 year-old, so I think the whole experience wasn't very new to her.  I think she was excited because all the children around her were.  There were a ton of prada moms on the train.  If you don't know what those are, I will do a blog post for you on them.  

After the train ride, they had a ton of FREE activities too.   Mimi got a tattoo of James on her arm, made a necklace out of pasta, stamped a picture, shopped the giftshop, went to storytime, danced and sang with other kids, and of course found snow cones to eat.  We were back home in Austin by 1 and home for nap.

Would I do it again?  Probably not.  Do I regret spending $40 and a tank of gas taking her? No.  I actually enjoyed driving out there and seeing other parts of Texas around Austin.  Also, driving out through the burbs reminded me why I like living in an apt in central Austin vs a huge house in the burbs for the same price.