Standing on line for anything unnecessary stopped when my days at Great Adventure ended. Of course now that I’m “Mama Victoria Pericon” (as Natalie calls me) I have to wait online with her to meet her favorite characters at today’s Children’s Day event at the South Street Seaport sponsored by Target.

The day started out pretty good… found a 3 hour parking spot (two blocks away!) and that was beyond exciting since I was determined to not pay the $20 an hour “special event” parking rate all of the nearby lots were offering.. Nat went in the Volo (armed with her Dora backpack) and Lukie in the Sidekick and we were off to find Dora. The schedule said Dora wouldn’t be there for a few hours so we stood on line to meet Bert and Ernie. And then to take photos with Zee and Moose A. Moose from Noggin. Only Luke has a photo with the Noggin scene because after waiting a half hour to take her Noggin scene photo, Natalie decided she didn’t want to take that photo. Yeah. I know. Life as a two year old.

Everywhere Luke and Natalie turned they were handed some sort of promotional giveaway — Target kites, Noggin crayons and CDs, Bob the Builder and Barney VHS tapes, coloring books and all these other random items.

Saw a few celebrity moms with their kids ….

It got to be overwhelmingly crowded so we left … wasn’t really planning to see Teddy Geiger and the fireworks because it would have ended way past their bedtime.

So we got back in the car, picked up my mother and headed to City Island for some seafood… a little tradition we’ve had for close to 10 years.

Totally not expecting to find one on City Island, I spotted an Alice’s Tea Cup. It looks like they are getting ready to open it sometime soon. I love Alice’s Tea Cup, I just really hope they don’t turn into Duane Reade. Every other corner. It’d really take away from it’s charm.