Last week, Angry Kid and I were invited by Aracely to go to Pretend City. It’s local here in Orange County. It seems that a ton of people that I know have gone there already. Shocking, since we usually check out the “new” kid places in town. Hey, I need to find more places to entertain my kid. He needs to be busy.
Of course, we picked a rainy day during Holiday vacation, right? I had to go check the museum out at their busiest time. I’m such a good planner like that. Angry Husband would have lost his mind and turned around if he saw how many people were there, seriously. But I’m much braver than that. Well not really, we had nothing else to do that day.
So I met up with Aracely, and watched Angry Kid walk away. I was not going to stalk Angry Kid, and follow him everywhere. I let him roam. I watched the other people, chase their kids around. Umm no thanks, exhausting. I sat there, and chatted with Aracely for at least two hours, maybe more. I checked on Angry Kid off and on. He was in the art room coloring, or in the grocery store shopping. He showed me all “the monies” he made from his various jobs.
I would found him like this, you know “workin”. Cause that’s what four year olds do, right? They are plumbers. He even had a time card to punch in, at every station (job). He was so happy working on those pipes. He walked around with me and showed me all the other jobs that he worked at. I tried to get a picture of him standing underneath the “Police Station” sign, but all I could was him working “Dispatch” in his fingerprint shirt.
Angry Kid tried to hide from me when it was time to leave. I knew that. I expected that. But I was able to coax him out of there with a promise to come back again. He told Angry Husband all about it that night. EVERY DAY now, he asks if he can go back to Pretend City. I sigh, and say “soon, we will go back soon”… I guess it’s time for a membership.
And my visit wasn’t all sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns like it appears to be. I was a little frustrated while I was there. I noticed that they had no proper kid identification system. Even Chuck E Cheese matches up the parents with the kid. Pretend City needs some kind of hand stamp or wrist band. They have no gatekeeper or guard at the door. They are good about helping look for a child if you can’t find them, but they would have no clue if the kid was completely gone. Also, they had vending machines. The vending machines were not working at the time. The guy from the vending machine company came and serviced them while we were there. He also told me that they have the credit card machine disabled. Angry Kid was screaming for food. And without an ATM machine and/or credit card machine on the vending machine, we were without snacks.
Would I go there again? Absolutely. Every kid’s place has some quirks. Even Disneyland.
