Birch Run and the Programmable Minivan

When Betsy and I were little, we used to take our babies to Birch Run. Once upon a time when Betsy turned four or five, Dad and Mom had taken all of us to the Birch Run outlets for her birthday. Our favorite outlet was the Pepperidge Farm store, where Dad bought a HUGE box of goldfish (Betsy's favorite!). The box was SO big, we all enjoyed the cheesy crackers multiple days after our trip. Sharing a box of fish crackers that big is a wonderful memory not easily forgotten.

When Betsy and I went to Birch Run with our babies, we drove our virtual minivan (in the school room). It was the coolest minivan you will probably ever see, because it was fully programmable and did not get into accidents. All we had to do was tell our minivan to take us to "Birch Run" and it would automatically drive us there. We could bop to the back of the van and care for our babies on the forty-five minute drive. It was dreamy.

Who knows what we actually did once we got to Birch Run, because I think the main play experience was the getting there, and spending quality time with each other and the babies in our minivan...

Fast forward twenty-odd years to last month, when Betsy called me up to say they'd just purchased a minivan!

at the Pepperidge Farm outlet

We had to go to Birch Run!

So, the Saturday before Christmas, we loaded the babies into the minivan and took off for the outlets. (Betsy and I sat in the front, though, since this minivan doesn't have auto pilot mode.)

We spent an hour or two browsing at Dressbarn and snatching up impossible deals at the Corelle and Carter's stores. We took a feed-Cyrus break, and spent a lot of time supervising Abel as he explored each store at two-foot-eye-level while pushing the shopping wagons around.

Our final stop was the fishy store. The wonder hasn't changed a bit from when we were kids. It was so much fun to introduce Abel to a store full of fishy crackers!

After lunch, we loaded the babies back into the minivan and headed north for home. Cyrus cried for half of the drive because he spit his nuk and it was lost... too bad we didn't have the fully programmable minivan to ferry us to and from the famed Birch Run.

We were both glad we only had two babies between us... because otherwise we wouldn't have gotten any shopping done! In our 90's virtual world, we each had at least two babies (no wonder we needed that programmable van!).

Being grown up is nothing like I thought it would be, and it's far from any childhood playtime fantasy, but we had a lot of fun making our real-life, grown-up outing to Birch Run last month...
and actually... our childhood play wasn't all pretend:

Some things (like the Pepperidge Farm store) are just the same if not better than they were when we were kids, some dreams are indeed fun for real (going to Birch Run as grown ups), and some parts of reality are even better than make-believe (having real babies instead of dolls!).

But there's always space for bigger dreams, more make-believe, something even better... like more sister time, more babies, and a programmable minivan...