Gone Baby Gone. The Goat is Gone!

If it wasn't bad enough that I had to take the boys to the mall this morning, somewhere between The Apple Store and Urban Outfitters, Goat, one of Ozzi's favorite wrestling partners, abandoned stroller never to be seen again.

With the tragic irony of this and my previous post fresh in mind I frantically searched everywhere praying I would find him. No luck. I annoyed the hell out of a few MOA employees. No luck there either.

But, all is not lost. Pacifier reassured K8 that Goat is still replaceable. During the search I also meet a super cool family from Iceland, Norway, or one of the other Nordic nations. Their orange Phil & Ted's was much cleaner than ours and they weren't in a panicked frenzy.

And just in case you were wondering who makes the cutest and cuddliest little goat this side of the alps: blabla kids. A fantastic globally responsible company that you can be happy to give your money to.

Ozzi's first visit to Mattocks Park is an exciting one.

It was finally nice enough outside today for Q, Ozzi, and I to reclaim residency at our fair weather second home, Mattocks Park. Our first visit of the season (first ever visit for Ozzi) was certainly not without excitement.

Shortly after our arrival, while Q is bouncing on the metal bouncy thing, I notice a small cylinder covered in duct tape attached to the bottom of it with two magnets. It looked like a miniature version of a pipe bomb. Very homemade. Very suspicious.

Now, I'm not a paranoid parent thinking danger is lurking around every corner. I could think of several, much more likely, things that this little cylinder could be. Ultimately though, I just couldn't ignore the voice in my head saying, "but what if it is, and you do nothing?" So, I called 911.

After a few minutes of quietly rapping the chorus of K8's favorite Public Enemy song in my head two cops showed up, shot the shit with me for a while, then agreed with my guess that it was a geocaching thing. Ignoring my understanding of procedure for suspicious packages, one of them pulled the little pipe off the playground equipment, shook it next to her ear, "Well, its not ticking." and opened it. Safety first. It was luckily, as we suspected, a piece of GPS dork treasure.

Though I'm obviously thankful it wasn't anything dangerous, I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed they didn't call in the bomb squad to remote detonate the thing with the cool robot. That would have been awesome!

The rest of my time was spent demoing the Phil & Teds for the small group of moms that were ogling it. Seriously, where the hell is my commission check?

The best/worst thing about owning a Phil & Ted's Stroller

Since Belinda and the Svenomenon are telling me that today would be the only day worth crawling out of our caves for I decided to double up on adventure with the boys. This morning we went to M.I.A., home for lunch and diaper changes, then off to the Minnesota Zoo for a few smelly hours.

At both locations, and on the other days that we've ventured outside this "spring" with our Phil & Teds Sport, I've noticed that it's a bit like driving an Aston Martin around town... in Roseau. All the Graco pushers we pass are pointing and staring at the stroller as though it was levitating. Several people have actually stopped us to ask us for autographs... ah, I mean, ask about the stroller. Now I know how Brad Pitt feels all the time.

All this attention can be a pain in the ass. Or, if your Omarosa-like ego hungers for reaffirmation that you are indeed cool, as is my case, the Phil & Teds was the best money we've ever spent. Never mind the fact that the stroller currently sits in the trunk of a car worth less than the actual stroller. You gotta have your priorities straight.

As a follow-up to an earlier post about Q's love for Van Gogh; As soon as we entered the Impressionists gallery, Q correctly pointed out the Van Gogh on the wall amongst all the other paintings.