Bright Lights, Big City: Some Power Struggles and a Cruise Director Fail

Well, the title about covers how our morning went.  Sky woke up feeling willful and stayed that way until after her nap.  Every time I would ask her to do something she would either ignore me or do exactly the opposite of what I'd asked of her.  Believe me, I know that it's totally normal and to be expected but I really wasn't prepared for it today (and being directly disobeyed is one of my biggest pet peeves).  I never yelled at her and I never turned my back on her but I just didn't have it in me this morning to dig into that magic mommy-bag of tricks to get around it and keep things moving forward.  I think I might have used too much of it just getting us all here in one piece.  Today, I just wanted to be listened to and it wasn't happening.
  To make things worse, I didn't prepare as much as I should have for the trip we took this morning.  Everything I'd read said that the Pasir Ris Park was a great place to take kids- an oasis in the city, right off the metro.  And it turned out that it was, but only if you knew where to find it, and we didn't.  We spent over an hour trying to find the park and then looking for the playground inside the park.  The kids did pretty well, especially considering that we had to take the metro for 20 minutes to get from Chinatown to Pasir Ris, but I think they started feeding off of my frustration.  To make things worse, when we finally found the park, half of it was blocked off and under construction.  You could see the tops of the equipment- rope bridges, long swings and slides- teasing you over the walls but all that was left was the regular playground equipment that the kids have at home.
  The kids didn't mind once we finally found the playground- they just got out there and played but I wanted things to be perfect for them and they weren't. I felt like I'd done something wrong- I should have looked at the maps more closely or been able to find out from the internet that most of the playground was closed.  D says I'm too hard on myself and I probably am.
 Things are looking up for this afternoon and evening.  Sky is up from her nap and is back to her wonderful self. Fire is still sleeping and D is out trying the Thai massage place down the street.  We have reservations for Mario Battali's pizza restaurant at the Marina Bay Sands tonight and Sky is excited to see the "magic trees" at the Garden by the Bay.   Wish us luck! 

  Pasir Ris Park playground- not sure this was worth the trip...