A night of "cooking"

MomsMiami.com had an event at Mr. Food No-Fuss Meals last night. Free wine and snacks were promised, along with a fantastic Mr. Food meal, so of course I was there.

The first stop was a place to put away my bag in a cute locker and grab an apron.



I know I should have ditched the baby/mom bag for a chic clutch! But it miraculously fit anyway.

My friend Guinevere came, and she is such a Rachael Ray wannabe pro that she assembled her quiche in like three minutes flat!



I was making the Chicken Picasso, which has several key ingredients, namely:



The directions at the Chicken Picasso station called for adding a half-cup of white wine to the recipe. And we can all assume I followed the directions down to the nth measurement, just for the sake of this post, OK?

Sometimes the directions were a bit anal:



But the Mr. Food people probably knew they would be dealing with people like me who are often too airhead-y to realize the label includes cooking instructions, which is key when you take your goody bag home. Everything was prepared and planned and clean and in that regard, waaay better than my own kitchen at home. Also, it didn't feel like cooking.

It wasn't all work, though. Everyone who came to the event got to munch on delicious snacks and meet new people. Here's little Guinny with Sherry North, author of Because You Are My Baby and other books.



After everyone prepared their meals (the Hula Hula Pork people got a lei, but the Chicken Picasso people didn't get a painting), it was time for karaoke! Chic MomsMiami.com editor Charlene Pacenti gave a moving rendition of I Will Survive and didn't even need to look at the words.



Naw, I'm just kidding. But maybe there will be karaoke next time.

Then we posed for a group picture, and I nearly knocked over Caryl Fantel, Mr. Food's own daughter! Oh, the shame! I'm probably on the Mr. Food black list and the MomsMiami.com un-invite list for the next event.



I'm the one in front who looks like a chipmunk. And I swear I don't have Mr. Food goodies stuffed in my cheeks. That blue apron is very slimming, but the face? It can't help.

There will be a next time, right?

More water park fun: A review

In my quest to tour local water parks, today I took my son to Coconut Cove in the South County Regional Park in Boca Raton. I'd heard from another mom that it is really good, and with a glowing testimonial like that, how could I not go? Coconut Cove is close enough to go to casually, but not exactly nearby, but I had to try it out.

After I paid to get in, the cashier gave me two bracelets to put on us. My son -- being a boy and all -- has never worn a bracelet of any kind. I have never put anything like that on him. And apparently I suck at putting these bracelets on, because both of them ended up too big for him and shaken off onto the floor. I returned to the cashier and asked if she could give me two more bracelets, and she told me she wasn't allowed to -- I should just show the bracelets I had if someone asked me about them. By this time, though, I had crumpled the bracelets into a wad, which wasn't very impressive.

The disheartening part about our trip to Coconut Cove, though, is that my son -- the same child who played for almost two hours at Splash Adventure just last week -- refused to so much as stand in one inch of water here. I guess he's just having an off day. With my son clinging to me, I tried walking him around the water playground, up the stairs, showing him the cute foam sea turtle just under the surface of the water, pointing out the other children who were happily playing.... He wouldn't take the hint. So I gave up and went home. (Notice the lack of photographs in this post.)

To compare it to Splash Adventure last week, though, I would rather have gone there than Coconut Cove today. The water playgrounds at both parks are almost the same, and Splash Adventure is closer to my home and about half the price. True, Coconut Cove has two tall water slides and a river float, but they were closed today -- and my boy wouldn't have been interested or able to use those features anyway.

Next week, I hope to try out yet another water park.

My work is so hard.

Oh, and I just found out about the City of Miami's first water park, Grapeland (what is up with that name?!), which just opened. Yay!