If you're on the road to hell, you must be getting directions from your GPS

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," so goes the saying and it's a road I'm familiar with ...

When I bought my Groupon to the fun child play place, I dreamt of my kids laughing and playing, while I watched them with motherly love, helping my toddler up a ladder or riding down a slide with my preschooler. The car ride home would be equally filled with laughs, smiles, and motherly love. Those thoughts went to hell faster than my toddler can run right out of my sight and I blame it all on GPS.

What should have been a 20 minute drive from preschool turned into an hour as I turned into every strip mall on the worst construction-filled traffic-packed road in existence - a road where you can't turn left unless at a light nor see the stores from the street because they are set so far back. And why? Because, as I found out when I finally pulled over and called the place, my &$%#^ GPS miscalculated the place 2 miles north of its actual location. Technology!!!!

Adding injury to insult, my poor toddler was screaming the entire time and my preschooler kept asking in earnest,"Are we almost there mom?" "Are you lost mom?"  "Don't say the word 'stupid' mom."

Back on the road I hit traffic and the 2 miles I had left to go took 15 minutes of stop-n-go traffic in which I was ready to find a baseball bat and a fax machine and go 'Office Space.' 

This was when my husband called and I unloaded on the poor guy. Then he said, "I'll be home at 1:30 today!" 

What?! "Honey," I asked as I gripped the steering wheel, "Did I not tell you I won't be home this afternoon?" 

"Yes you did, but I thought I'd surprise you all when you got home!" He said way too chipper.

Oh no, dear husband, a surprise would have been you telling me you'd be home early so I could have picked you up and you could be with us! Where's that fax machine?!?

When we finally reached the place, one hour & 15 minutes after we left preschool, I was emotionally shot. I tried to muster the happiness and good intentions I originally had but everything annoyed me. Here's the Top 4:

1) my 20 month old didn't want to play with anything. She just wanted to walk around. We could do that for free kid!

Shooting gallery - my daughter looking forlorn

2) my preschooler insisted on riding the only self-propel car in the large truck zone fending off smaller kids like a running back making a beeline to the end zone. Do you know how many times I had to jump in and plead, " please take turns with this 2-year old!"

My son is actually bigger than these 2 kids. My daughter crawling in the background.

3) my 20 month old kept climbing up the huge slides when there was clearly a sign saying "no climbing up slide" (Note to self: Teach her to read), 8-year olds (was there no school?) were flying down with clear disregard, and a four-year-old kept calling to me, "She keeps going up the slide!" Great, now I'm being parented by a kid still wearing pull-ups.

4) my preschooler refused to listen to my pleas to go to the bathroom so I spent the entire time picturing him peeing in the jumping balls and of us getting escorted out the door (although that might have been a good way to leave)

Four days later, my son is still asking me when we can go back to play. I mumbled, "when hell freezes over" then looked outside -- Chicago in February -- and realized it had. We'll be back next week.