Playing Hooky

I played hooky the other day.

Our anniversary was on Thursday, and the last day of first grade was on Friday, and Thursday was a half day anyway, so I took Thursday off. We indulged in subterfuge; I pretended to go to work, but actually I hung out at Starbucks until the girl was safely on the bus.

A few hours later, we headed to the bus stop to get her - she was duly surprised to see me, and thoroughly excited when we told her we were going to Rye Playland for the afternoon.

Rye Playland is a local small amusement park, hard on Long Island Sound, with an ice rink, a pool, a beach, and a wooden roller coaster from 1928. I went there a bunch as a kid, but except for a trip to the ice rink last winter, I hadn't been back since. It's a total blast. Luckily, it wasn't crowded - probably because it was a Thursday afternoon and school wasn't yet out. It's funky, and charming - sort of art deco meets Chautauqua Victorian.

We started off on the Dragon Coaster - the girl screamed and cried and refused to ride it again. Every ride thereafter, she asked the attendant, "does this go fast?" We did a carousel, the ferris wheel, the Old Mill boat ride (twice), some of the kiddie rides (the ones she wasn't too tall for!), the bumper cars, the log flume (twice) and the Yo-Yo and the Kite Flyer and I can't remember what else. I wanted to go back on the Dragon, but there was no convincing the child.

After we got home and destickified, we went out to dinner at a good restaurant, where the girl decreed the chicken fingers "better than McDonald's or Burger King or my school" and I had Prosecco and pork belly and a cheese course in lieu of dessert, but I got dessert anyway when they brought us a complimentary crème brûlée because it was our anniversary after all.

I think it might have been the perfect way to celebrate our anniversary.