Review: Legoland Atlanta

Baby Girl had the day off school on Friday, so we made the junket over to Atlanta to explore Legoland. I love to take advantage of kid-centric places when everyone else is at school, given my allergy to crowds and my abiding fear of Lego fanboy stampedes.

The first thing you should know about the woman writing this review is she is not a rich woman but this trip was a spendy affair. But an annual trip to Legoland? I'm down.

The second thing you should know about the woman writing this review (in addition to her strange allergies, fears and poverty) is that she's going to step up on her soapbox about violent toys and children. But then later she's going to be put to shame, so, haha. You get the last laugh at her expense.

Legoland ATL is about a 2 hour drive from where we live in E. Tennessee. Of course not including the obligatory trip to McDonald's for a Happy Meal, which my kids didn't even know what it was called. That made me proud. That pride is now deflated because I think they can now recognize a Happy Meal in a line-up. Shoot.

Legoland is located in a very posh mall in and around Buckhead, GA. The mall is 3 stories of opulence, and the cars on display in the mall are Porsches and Bentleys. In other words, I felt sort of underdressed in my Old Navy swag. But no matter, I was here for the blocks.

Tickets Tickets are $19/adult $15/child 2 and under are free. Buy tickets online for some savings. Memberships are available for $50/person.

The first attraction is a lego factory where the children learn how Legos are made. Very interactive and cute. The man leading the tour is known as Professor Brick-Brack. He is a learned scholar in Legology, obviously.

After the factory tour, you are ushered into the second attraction about which I am here to warn you. It is a ride much like through a haunted house at an amusement park. This ride is pee-your-pants scary for a 5 and 3 year-old. Dark and deathly. What's more, upon boarding the ride, the staff instruct the kids, "Here is your weapon." Because it's kind of like a laser tag ride where they point their little shooters at targets in order to save the princess. Really? Here's your weapon? Legos are made in Denmark. Denmark, you are better than this! Violent is not who you are!

After you are set free from the ride of the deathly hallows, you walk through a serene replication of Atlanta built entirely with Legos. This is pure awesome and I totally geeked out.

Finally, you are released into an enormous play area which includes: - an enormous jungle gym like they have at Chuck E. Cheese-type establishments (tip: bring socks for your littles, as my little hippies were excluded from this) - a cafe (didn't try) - a Duplo block area for wee babes - a soft Lego stacking area

- wicked cool car ramps

- a princess play -- complete with karaoke - a stamping instruction room - another ride that is not scary but totally awesome that makes kids pump their bicycle legs

- a movie theatre The movie lasts 10 minutes, is 4D and we watched it twice, so amazing was its cinematic feature.

Finally, of course, you cannot exit Legoland without paying a vi$it to the gift $hoppe, whereby we shook the Lego dust off our feet and bid adieu, promising to come back in a year or so.

We had a great time, except for that ghoulish ride that encouraged warfare. Parents should not condone the use of such weaponry. Further, they should not buy $8 foam swords for their children in the gift shoppe. It gives these impressionable ones all the wrong ideas.

In no particular order, my thoughts on child models, Sara Bareilles, hard work and lip gloss

People occasionally ask me why I haven't gotten my daughter into modeling. And, oh, what a sweet compliment, and wait, are we being serious because, haha, have you seen my kid beeline the second she smells me reaching for a camera, but also, hmm, yeah I do hear kids who model have a fun time and money sacked away for college is always nice, and --

I don't know. It's just...

Sara Bareilles practiced a whole year before she performed a rendering of Elton John's song in front of other people.

***

I finally watched the documentary Miss Representation that is a clarion call to not only change the messages we are sending about women but also to change the message-makers. Women are surely in the minority at the top echelons of media companies that are producing messages of misogyny, sexism, violence toward women that come pouring out of our screens and speakers like a fire hydrant. Hey, womyn's studies. How yooodooin'?

This Miss Representation movie? Scared. Me. Like no horror flick ever did.

Maybe because we're all living it. The credits stop rolling and the horrors of women objectified don't stop. One particular part of the documentary that most sobered me was about reality television portrayals of women. Truth told, I never watch reality TV because I don't have the talking picture box networks in my house. Lame. But I did once upon a time, and I remember  teasers for certain episodes. It is all about the promise of a catfight. Or the promise of Real Housewives getting real with one another, which we all know couldn't be any more staged.

We have made celebrities out of women who do nothing for the cause of anybody but themselves, oftentimes by doing really awful things to others. Or! We celebrate women who do nothing but put on lip gloss. All hail and honor. Let us unveil the mighty secrets in glossy magazines of how The Kardashians Korporation accomplishes the smoldering lip. A magnanimous contribution to humanity. Bow down in reverence.

Over there, Sara Bareilles is practicing. She's banging hard on the keys to get her craft just right.

***

We saw Sara Bareilles last night and she amazed. Such a strong voice with real range and such a charismatic performer.  I was pretty much convinced that we are going to hang out at some point in the near future, Sara Bareilles and I, because we totally connected. She was cracking all kinds of jokes and she knew I was down.

One of my favorite moments at the concert was when she played Elton John's "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road." She said it took her a year to practice before she even dared share it with an audience. "Because it turns out it's a really hard song," she said. The way she played it was just...sacred. She captured the range of emotions and notes so well. She had mastered it.

And this was Sara Bareilles. Thrice-nominee of a Grammy award. She's gone platinum and stuff. She still practices with dedication and she is not afraid of hard songs. She told the audience to look in the other direction if she messed up, or to just look at our phones until she gets back on track. She welcomes the unscripted moments.

I'm not saying Sara Bareilles or anyone else who sings and plays instruments is the paragon of womanhood in America. I just appreciate people, women especially, who are willing to do the hard work to produce something bigger than themselves. Whether that's a song or an opus, a garden, a foreign relations policy, a computer tablet.

*** I don't have a hard position on my kids modeling or learning karate or wearing fake mustaches all day long. I just want to teach them about hard work in service to others; the only work worth doing to reap real and eternal rewards. My children are only on lease to me for a limited time. I don't just want my daughter to know her worth, it's my job to imbue in her a strong sense of duty, to not be afraid to lead with heart and head and work hard with her hands. If she is called to sing and play like Sara Bareilles, then I hope she bangs the ivory out of those keys after much practice and even then, I hope she's not afraid to mess up. Because therein lies the beauty in this unscripted, unphotoshopped marvelously flawed, hard, unpracticed life.

That's the kind of modeling business I can get behind.

The requisite back to school picture

I already saw one this week that made me cry, and I've never met the towheaded boy who was headed off to kindergarten, right after he shrugged his little sister off his shoulder and stuffed the sign his mom made him hold for the camera. By virtue of raising our children in the South, we launch the wave of back-to-school pictures that graffiti Facebook walls. In a month, we will glance at our  New England counterparts like they've just been the frivolous grasshopper playing his fiddle, while we carpenter ants down here in Tennessee soldier on, getting ready for school.

Oh, those requisite First Day Pictures for the Social Media's Pleasure.

Here is what I want to see: the pictures of the parents taking the pictures. Posturing their children to appear a certain temperament, or frowning at the uniform that was so well-fitting at the end of last school year, or at the outfits chosen for first day impressions.

Appendix A:

I will spare you the picture of me. I haven't slept all week--and I am a person who values sleep! I've been so anxious about this school year beginning and all of the ramifications therein that I haven't slept. Last night? Not a wink. I finally decided at 4:30a.m. to put on my clothes and hit the gym.

I have a kindergartener this year. My kid. Not the one I babysit. Mine. My child. That one I gave birth to last week and brought home from the hospital in her snuggly onesie yesterday.

Baby Girl starts kindergarten this week. Ok, so I should spare myself some of the theatrics. My kid is in the same classroom she's been in for two straight years already, with the same delightfully gifted teacher who invented early education as far as I am concerned. I have no worries about this situation and neither does Baby Girl. But oh that adrenaline of the first day! The anticipation! The jitters! The smell of gluesticks that smacks you immediately when the doors of knowledge fling open!

My heart was quieted tonight as I found one of my favorite passages in a favorite book of mine that every parent should read. My boyfriend sent it to me during his last semester of college. My boyfriend with whom I share that baby who's going to kindergarten.

Now for a word from our sponsor, 1-800-SENTIMENTAL-MUCH?

The author writes to his son's teachers present and future:

If you only knew how nervous we all are, I thought. How hopeful we are that you will be kind, that this isn't something you've grown tired of doing, that our children will soar with you and not in spite of you, that they will still believe it all when you're done with them--that you will let that be true in their world for this one last year. You could never know how much we hope that you will please, please--to the very depth of all the word means--please, be kind.

- Marc Parent, Believing it All

*** Forthcoming: August 2013 First day portrait.

Here's one to tide you over until then.

Updated: