the dawning of the age of aquarium (tm)

well, I finally snapped. this could mean so many things, but in this case it means 2 - I finally snapped and pleaded with sean to call out sick on sunday, and I finally snapped out of my funk.

the two are, of course, related.

after a grueling day of doing absolutely nothing on saturday, when sean came home, I asked him feebly if he felt sick. of course, he didn't catch on right away, not until my tears came, anyways. he did call out, but being the honest guy that he is, he told his manager (the night before, even) that he needed to take a personal day for his family, not because he wasn't feeling well. he told his manager it was for me. and that was the truth.

so on sunday, we slept "late" - ie, like 9am - and then trekked off to the aquarium. trent was already planning to go to the phillies game with brett, so it was just me and sean and bella. as we cruised through camden (could be so nice, if only they had less bail bond shops and more, well, anything) we looked at the philly skyline and decided we'd call camden "East Philly" from now on.

when you have a 9 month old baby, a trip to the aquarium is little more than a quick tour of various fish. you can't really read the signs or watch any of the little movies. or even stand and watch the fish. you have to kind of keep moving. but we had fun anyway. bella was totally enthralled with the fish that she could see at her level - the bigger fish in the tanks that reached to nearly the ground. she wasn't as thrilled after about an hour, though, unfortunately. and her arms weren't long enough to touch a shark or a ray. but we had a great time, except for the one thing that always spoils stuff for us - other people and their extremely selfish, crabby-ass stupidity. but we looked past it.

we got home around 2pm and I was really not ready for our day to end, even though sean was tired and so was bella. if I only get one day, dammit, I'm going to make the most of it. so I corralled everyone back into the car and we drove up to the quakertown public pool, which is right across the street from the playground that nicole was marvelling over. their pool is seriously the best public pool I have ever, ever, ever been to. it has a large swirly water-park quality water slide, a big giant mushroom fountain in the kiddie pool, smaller fountains that the kids are allowed to touch and sit on and play in, and a gradually sloped entrance to the kiddie part that allowed bella to splash and play in a small amount of water. but the best part was that the entire bottom and sides of the pool were covered in soft padding. not grody soft padding that harbors mold and other creatures, but soothing, clean padding that saves your feet from getting scraped and is soft on the knees so you can follow your crawling baby around without leaving a trail of blood and skin. it was great.

bella was so thrilled at finally not being hot that she fell asleep in sean's arms in the deeper part of the pool where he walked her back and forth between walls. and she stayed asleep for 2 hours - we actually had to wake her up to leave. if only I had brought a magazine, I would have been in heaven. (I dare not even say "start a book" because I might just evaporate on the spot.)

if only we'd done this sooner. the pool closes on labor day and nicole can't even join us for a day. next year, we're going to buy a membership even though it's 20 mins away from us, it's THAT nice. and they didn't give me a hard time about not living there or having a membership or any of that nonsense. and the snack bar has FANTA!!! god, I love me some orange sodey pop.

we came home refreshed and recharged, in time to be totally dragged down by the season finale of six feet under. I didn't care, though, because I was so happy to have spent the day sharing the parenting burden (I mean priviledge) with sean.

ahhhh. with this, I can carry on through the next 3 weeks until sean has EVERY sunday off.