Ahoy Thar Mateys

I wasn't kidding when I said we would be frolicking through our last week of summer with gritted teeth.

Yesterday, we again took the advice of the well-traveled and very pretty Jessica and headed to Annapolis to Pirate Adventures on the Chesapeake to search for some treasure...aaaarrrgh... or at least a good bottle o' rum. (Yo ho ho.)

I didn't tell mGuy because I thought he would be over the moon about it and wanted it to be a surprise. And I invited one of Big Guy's buddies along so as to circumvent his normal "This is stupid" wrench-throwing tactics.

It almost worked.

Upon arrival, you get dressed up in pirate attire and get your face or a tattoo painted. mGal got a mustache, but immediately washed it off because it was itchy. Little One got a "fishie" tattoo on her hand, but immediately wiped her hand across her face and smeared it. The older boys did not want to dress up or get painted. Fine, but mGuy had to be cool like them, so he wouldn't participate either.

Great. Did I mention that Pirate Adventures is a little more pricey than the normal Camp Mom activity?

Then Big Guy started torturing mGuy in the way that big brothers usually do by telling him to buzz off and quit following them and stop talking.

Sigh.

mGuy started crying about how mean he is. And how he HATES pirates. And how he's hot. And he wants to go home.

And every.other.kid.there is getting painted and dressed up and talking pirate talk and paying close attention to the pirate indoctrination being given by our fearless leader.



And I am about to send my kids off to walk the plank.

I dragged them off one by one by the armpit and threatened to leave them standing on the dock if they didn't KNOCK IT OFF and STOP COMPLAINING and TRY TO ACT LIKE HUMAN BEINGS forgodssake. Or if not human beings, how about at least PIRATES?

Then I started looking for that bottle o' rum.

We boarded the ship and I must take my bandana off to the pirate crew... they took all the kids to the front of the boat, invited the parents to sit in the shade in the back and you could pretty much sit there and ignore the fact that you even brought any kids if you were so inclined. You know, if your kids are being buttheads and you think you might want to ignore them.

Which is what I thought I might do right about then. Except, apparently, Little One is a landlubber. She was terrified everytime the boat rocked or turned. She buried her head in my lap and screamed and punched me most of the hour long cruise. I would have twittered, but I was afraid she would hurl all over me and my phone.

But, she perked up a bit when that dastardly Pirate Pete came chasing after us in a row boat. And even though our boat was spinning back and forth, she loved that the other kids were shooting water cannons at Pete and eventually knocked him off his feet and right into the bay. (Jellyfish, ew!)

Later, we pulled up the hidden treasure and all the kids were called to come take a handful. She found her sealegs and jumped right up and grabbed her booty.

By this point, shiver me timbers, the other kids were having fun too. Spraying water and cracking pirate jokes and grabbing their handfuls of treasure. When we finally docked, I had a gaggle of pirate-lovers on my hands. (I must say, these people pirates must have degrees in child psychology if they can win over Big Guy.)


(Yeah. That's my kids. The ones who AREN'T dressed like pirates. And Big Guy? I guess he's yawning.)

Because they were good in the end, I took them all out for seafood. (Ok, I had seafood. They had the usual kid fare - pizza, chicken tenders, pasta... whatever. The crab cakes were delicious!) While we were there, mGuy asked over and over, "Can we do that again? After lunch? Tomorrow? Can I come back with dad? When are we going on there again?" so I'd have to call it a success.

After lunch we hopped on a water taxi and rode over to the City Dock (no seasickness this time) and got some ice cream, walked around a bit, and then taxied back across the harbor. (And then, all FIVE of them played Playmobil pirates for the rest of the day. We have A LOT of Playmobil pirates.)

Day One of The Last Week, down.

Up later this week, depending on the weather, the National Aquarium and the Zoo.